Christian Politicians aren’t Perfect, Just Forgive Them
Update: Please read through to the comments. Both Jeremy Pierce and Joe Carter believe I have misread them, though Joe graciously took responsibility for lack of clarity. If I am now reading him correctly, I agree with his points as made in that comment.
One day back when I was a junior NCO in the Air Force, a junior officer (2nd Lieutenant) came by my work area to correct me on an issue. There were perhaps a dozen people gathered around, all aircrew members. He wanted to know why I had said in a meeting that I would reflect even one instance of tardiness for a flight in a supervisee’s performance report. At the time we used a nine point system, and I said I would reduce the appropriate score by at least one for that instance.
His point was that nobody was perfect, and I was expecting young airmen to be perfect. Since he came to me in front of a number of people I simply pointed to them and said, “None of these people have been late for a flight during the last year. There are some of them who have never been late for a flight in their career–longer than mine. I have never been late for a flight. A nine indicates someone is as good as it gets in that area.”
“Nobody’s perfect” is one of the best excuses for bad behavior known to humanity. “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” while true, is one of the best excuses for bad behavior known to Christians. It drives me crazy, because it is normally used in circumstances in which nobody is expecting anyone to be perfect, and in defense for activities that are substantially less than perfect.
Niow the message seems to be “Christian politicians aren’t perfect, just forgive them.” Well, personally, I would suggest in many cases that they need to be forgiven back home, once they are out of the public sector.
I had been laying off of the David Vitter story, largely because I think we get a bit too tangled in these things, but also because I think the proper people to deal with the issue are the voters of Louisiana. What he has done is now out there for people to evaluate, and they should do so. I felt the same way about Clinton, though I thought his lying about it under investigation was not only immoral an illegal, but dreadfully stupid. But I have expressed my annoyance with investigations that don’t manage to prosecute for any offense related to the one they were investigating, but get someone for obstruction or lying to investigators.
But here we have someone who preaches a high standard in sexual morality, does so vocally and regularly, and has commented on the behavior of others. I saw one conservative Christian blogger who did a very good job on this, Laura at Pursuing Holiness. She clearly understands that one may not be perfect, but that there are standards.
But two other Christian conservative bloggers I regularly read and generally respect, seem to be off in “Christians aren’t perfect” land. Jeremy, at Parableman is playing word games with hypocrisy, while Joe Carter at the evangelical outpost said:
But this sets an unreasonable standard for politicians. The higher the person’s standards, the more likely they are to miss the mark. As Gary Bauer said when asked to comment on the Vitter scandal, “If a voter is looking for Jesus on the Republican ticket, they’re not going to find him. There was only one perfect man, and all others have fallen short. They should look at how a candidate dealt with his moral failures.”
Listen folks, I’m not looking for Jesus on the Republican or Democratic ticket. Somehow I feel he’d want a third party assuming he didn’t just move to another country. What I do want is politicians with integrity. Larry Flynt making comments provides you with some nice rhetoric to hide behind, but come on! Larry Flynt isn’t a standard for us as Christians. He isn’t even a reasonable standard for ordinary whore mongers.
Just as there were a dozen guys around me on that rating who hadn’t been late for a light, so there are, I’m certain, men in Louisiana–I won’t venture how many–who actually uphold their vows of matrimony. I bet there are even Christian guys who are not perfect and have committed adultery, who dealt with it immediately and openly.
I’m not saying in Vitter’s case that he should resign or be prosecuted. I don’t know precisely where he stands legally. If I were a voter in Louisiana, I can’t absolutely say that this would prevent me voting for him, were I willing to vote for him on other grounds. But it would certainly drop him way down my list under the heading of integrity. I would hope that there would be a better alternative next time around. I’d have to say, “Sorry, you had your chance, but we need leaders with integrity who don’t have to get caught before they own up.”
Instead of making excuses, and making lame remarks about not finding Jesus on the Republican ticket, we should, as Christians, decry someone not living up to their words.
And as far as hypocrisy is concerned vs. inconsistency, I would suggest that “white washed tomb” covers it all quite well. It looks good on the outside, but on the inside–not so much.
Now Sen. Vitter does have one thing in his favor: He confessed when he was actually caught. The problem is, however, the very same thing is his major problem. He confessed after he got caught. At least he isn’t so abysmally stupid that he would think he can continue to deny all this and get away with it.
I’m strongly in favor of letting most of these issues be decided by voters. At the same time, I’m appalled at the number of Christians who normally uphold strong values who suddenly find cracks in the moral system when a favored politician falls.
and
Henry, did you miss the fact that Vitter is a Senator who has consistently used his position to push legislation governing the private behavior of other people? He’s not just a guy on the street, he has power that he uses to (hypocritically) push an ideology into law that he himself violated at the same time he was pushing it. What he does as a Senator affects all of us, and that his behavior is inconsistent with what he would legally require of all of us is the appropriate concern of all of us.
Henry, I’m not sure where you’re getting any of this from, but it doesn’t seem to me that you got it from my post or Joe’s. Neither one of us came remotely close to excusing Vitter’s behavior or claiming that we should just let this pass. What we did is complain about what people were calling it. In particular, it’s inaccurate to call it hypocrisy if it’s merely that he didn’t meet his own standards of behavior. Both of us insisted that it would be hypocrisy if there are further factors involved, and both of us insisted that it does seem as if such further factors are involved, which means there’s a strong case that it’s hypocrisy after all, but that the original claim as to why it’s hypocrisy by many people is insufficient. But even before that, even if that further information is false, it wouldn’t necessarily be hypocrisy, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not immoral or that we should just accept it. I can’t see how you could get that out of either his post or mine. This was an issue of accuracy in terminology, not an issue of just approving of what he did or ignoring it.
What I do want is politicians with integrity.
But are there any, in your country or mine? And if there are, how can you distinguish them from those who have simply been successful so far in covering up their hypocrisy or (to satisfy Jeremy) old-fashioned sin? If in fact, as so often later turns out to be true, the politicians with apparent integrity are covering up what is really happening in their life, isn’t that in fact an argument to vote for those who have openly admitted their moral failings? This is not entirely tongue in cheek, for we have had politicians here in the UK choosing to admit morally embarrassing things about themselves at the early stages of a campaign, perhaps for fear that they might come out anyway later, and being more or less forgiven by an electorate which would not have forgiven them if the failings had come out under duress just before an election.
Perhaps I kind of beat around the bush, but I intended to say that those things are important, and I thought I did.
The reason I wouldn’t say it was impossible that I would vote for him (though it would be unlikely I would have even before the scandal) is that there can potentially be worse alternatives. I would hope not, but there could be. I have a very firm stand against single issue decisions.
Should he resign? Again, that’s a call I’d rarely make. I would hope his voters would put some pressure on him about that, but mostly I would hope he would never be reelected.
I don’t know about others, but I read the paragraph I quoted from Joe and his approving quote of Bauer as minimizing the offense.
Here are two more things that led me to see it as minimizing:
I think maybe you should look at your post again in the context of the discussion. You’re substantially more conservative than I am, and it seems to me you should find this sort of behavior unacceptable in a Senator, possibly even more so than I do.
My problem, in this case, is that he is very vocal on the issue, and he chose to admit his failing only after his name was released. I would lighten up, though only a little, had he made his confession when it was known that the list existed, but not certain it would be released.
I do give him points for not hedging his confession, however.
I don’t think we should overlook the fact that his behavior occurred several years ago – it was not recent. From the WaPo article:
“Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling,”…
“Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling,”
It was a closed chapter in his life. He confessed and quit on his own, not waiting to be caught so whatever he said after 2004 had nothing to do with hypocrisy. I can’t think of any reason for him to reveal his sin to the public before now – I’m satisfied that he confessed to his wife and inner circle. This was a rehashing of an old, regrettable issue.
Doh! I didn’t mean to put the same quote twice – sorry, I’m undercaffeinated at this time of day. This is the other part of the quote: The statement containing Vitter’s apology said his telephone number was included on phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates dating from before he ran for the Senate in 2004.
I think I’m going to have to keep taking it from both sides on this. I give him lots of points for making a real confession, but I find the original offense more than regrettable. I also think that someone who is trying to be a major voice on a moral issue needs to have this out in the open. IOW I do see a reason he should have gone public.
But then again, he’s your senator, not mine! 🙂
Henry,
I think you may be missing the point of my post (which means I didnt communicate it clearly). I’m not defending Vitter at all. I think he should resign. In fact, I do think he is guilty of hypocrisy, but in a different context. He said that Bill Clinton should resign for his immoral actions yet doesnt appear to think that he should do the same. Now that is hypocritical.
The point I was trying to make is that the media now only recognizes one sin “hypocrisy” (really, moral inconsistency). The problem with this, as I noted, is that it denies that there is any real, objective moral standard at all. The biggest problem with Vitter’s actions is not that he was being inconsistent but that he was soliciting a prostitute. But to make that point, the media would have to admit that there might be something wrong (other than incurring a misdemeanor fine) for such actions.
I’m reminded of a “sin -> human falliability -> forgive -> sin ….” cycle that was discussed on the LinuxSA discussion list when we were discussion fundementalism. It made two things inevitable; more “sinning” due to lowering of the importance of unavoidable consequences and errant dogma (misinterpretation of gospel by falliable humans yet uncritical adherence to interpretation.)
OK, you graciously took responsibility for any unclarity in writing, and I will do so for any errors in my reading.
I would agree with your points here, including the absence of any standards, though I might even be going lighter on him than you did. I do believe a politicians fidelity in marriage, and of course living up to the standards he preaches are important. It’s a problem I have with Giuliani.
Both Joe and I were willing to admit that other things related to this turn out to look an awful lot like hypocrisy. This is not about word games in order to defend anyone. I wasn’t about defending him, or I wouldn’t have said what he did was wrong. I was criticizing people who are misusing the English language in order to score political points for the left by making this particular sin into something that it’s not. Since (as Joe points out) hypocrisy is the only sin remaining for many on the left, they can capitalize on that if they call this hypocrisy. They can’t do that as easily without the use of this word. So they use it willy-nilly, and I wanted to offer a bit of a corrective. That’s not a word game, and it’s certainly not a word game in order to pretend that adultery is ok. I really have trouble seeing how you thought I could possibly be defending adultery.