Osler's Razor

That second to last paragraph really speaks to me -- it's one of my main contentions with Christianity and much of my rationale for straying from the flock, so to speak. How do you deal with such hypocricy? I'd love to know, because I have a strong desire to come back into the flock, but not if I have to compromise my ideals.
 

The Spitzer scandal is a tragedy. And I hope that he and his family can recover. Thankfully, repentance is available to all.

I also love the story in John 8. But I think we need to remember Jesus' final words to the woman, "Go and sin no more." He wasn't ready to send her to Hell, but her behavior needed to change or she would find herself there.

We don't do anyone any favors when we look away. Certainly, we shouldn't attack anyone in a condescending or hateful way. Rather the call should be to all (including ourselves) to repent, to turn away from sin, to start anew. Had those who brought the woman to Christ taken her to receive Christ's message, I'm sure Jesus would still have unequivocally condemned her actions, while telling her all is not lost.

Remember that God manifests His love through chastening. (See Hebrews 12:5-8). He doesn't want us to wallow in sin, and we should lovingly call others to repent, as did Jesus in His injunction, "Go and sin no more."

But hatred, spite, and rejoicing in someone's self-destruction are inappropriate and not what I am talking about.

I'll be talking more about this on Sunday on my blog.
 

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue....

We are all hypocrites, every one of us, and we are all sinners.

The problem is that sometimes the crowd that thinks evangelicals are too quick to judge don't want to judge at all. They forget the "we are all sinners" part, and instead want to say that we don't get to judge so nobody is a sinner as far as we know. Well, that isn't right either.

And if I see Spitzer I wouldn't call him a sinner, I would just think he is a really bad guy for cheating on his wife and wrecking his home, and it doesn't take a religious position to understand that.
 

I would argue that, as Osler said, we are all hypocrities. That is the very crux of a faith in which we are to be an "imitation of Christ" (i.e. he who was without sin) yet live in a fallen world. I believe a quote from TR is appropriate-
"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."
This is something we should all strive for in our lives, I believe. As someone who may go into government service, I understand that we must all be wary of these temptations. Every individual may have some sort of weakness, be it lust, avarice, etc, however, we must face our weaknesses head on and confront them, rather than pretending they do not exsist, as Mr. Pankrantz so elegantly stated.

Thank You,
Chicago
 

P.S. I second RRL's comments.

- Chicago
 

I guess the best thing for him to do is resign because the scandal will compromise his ability to lead others, when it is known now that he does not follow these rules he was elected to enforce or whatever right? I mean is this the logic?

I am not ever going to condone either prostitutes nor the people who visit them, especially when those clients are MARRIED. I value marriage, as I waited until I was 33 to get married, when I was sure I knew who I was and who the right person was, and that I was at a place in my life I could fully commit to it. It is maybe BECAUSE my parents had 6 terrible marriages between them that I truly value marriage, or at least MY marriage.

Having said this, though, I sort of wish it was not the "rule" always that this person must resign their office.... WHY WHY WHY???

DO we ALWAYS have to RESPECT fully our elected people? Is this a DUMB question? Here is my argument: If we expect everyone who even thinks about running for public office to always be without any past sin, to be so PERFECT, to be just without flaw and of perfect character, then WHO is truly qualified???? ANYONE??? Certainly I would never get elected, and I would never run, because I would be too afraid of what they would dig up in my past... I have no criminal history, I have not even had a speeding ticket in like ten years... but who knows?? Maybe they would find out that it took me three times to pass the California Written Driving Test. That I studied French for three years and all I can say is "HELLO. LOOK AT THE SNOW! WOULD YOU LIKE SOME BUTTER?" Maybe they would consider it a weakness that instead of telling my son the truth, that we put the dog to sleep, that we told him that Riley went to "go live with the Vet..." That I condemn other parents but rarely look at how effective my parenting is. Or maybe it would be revealed that even though I had been given a lot of opportunities in life that other people had not, like incredible schools and opportunities, I squandered some of them.Just yesterday I HIJACKED Osler's blog. How many deadly sins are we at so far?

Am I a criminal? No, but am I PERFECT??? WHO IS???? That guy is FLAWED and he probably should go, but why not Bill Clinton? And what is more disturbing is that on the TODAY show, which is to me a sort of legit News show, "DR" LAURA was on there blaming Spitzer's wife for neglecting her marriage so that he had to go to a prostitute....

Is it ME????? Or is the world just getting CRAZY???? They say if you do not vote you get the government you deserve, BUT I also think that if we expect these people to be SO PERFECT, and then crawl up their Uh... You Know.. with a microscope that NO ONE, not even HIGHLY QUALIFIED PEOPLE are EVER going to want to run for office. IS THAT the government we deserve? That is the government we going to get.
 

Osler,

I never had you for a class at BLS, and I think I only had one Practice Court exercise before you. However, after reading your blog for quite some time now, I truly believe you are a phenomenal human being and BLS is exceedingly lucky to have a professor and person like you.
 

Craig--

I know you pretty well, and you are the kind of person I want as a prosecutor. We need to have prosecutors, and I am no anarchist, and they need to be people with your goodness, intelligence, and humility.

My point is that we need to recognize the dangers of being the accuser, especially as people of faith.

It's funny you say that about John 8-- I hear that a lot. Why is it that we always hear that story and put ourselves in the position of Jesus, God's son come to Earth among all the people in that story? That's not us-- I'm not divine. We are the mob, with sin in our hearts and a smooth stone in our hand. It is us, the members of the mob, God tried to teach through that event.

Like so much of Christianity, what God seems to want in John 8 makes things more difficult, not easier, to accept the way our society works.
 

Prof. Osler,

What I was trying to say in my imperfect way was that the Pharisees brought the woman to the right Person but for the wrong reason. And I was trying to illustrate what the mob should have done, what we should do in a similar situation.

And though I'm young, I've learned something: We can't make it to Christ alone. We need each other, as imperfect as we are, to make it to Him. And we need to speak up when someone we love engages in behavior that we know is wrong. Not in a pulpit-pounding, chest-thumping way. But tenderly, lovingly, and with a heart full of forgiveness. Hopefully, she'd do the same for us.

True, the call to repentance can't be with a stone hidden behind our backs. But we must reach out, lift the sinner on our shoulders, and carry her to Christ. One day, we may need her to return the favor.
 

You know, I've been thinking about this post all day, and I'm afraid I haven't quite understood the whole conversation. I'll be the first to admit that my mind doesn't process things like most normal peoples', which is usually to my embarassment and detriment.

The initial post made me think of my own sphere of influence: my immediate family. Even though I'm a sinner, I can't let the fear of being labled a hypocrite keep me from lovingly correcting my kids and doing my best to keep them from making the same mistakes I have.

I guess it just hit me that you've been talking about those who stand up publically with railing accusations and pointed fingers, rather than those who take their loved one aside, talk to them, understand their situation, and then talk about a solution.
 

Anon. 12:48--

You need to find the right flock. God has many, and one agrees with you on those things that matter most, I'm sure! Don't judge God by everyone who does things in His name.
 

As religious persons, it is easy to get caught up in our own theologies, introspection, moral outrage, and finally our own guilt when confronted with a situation where secular laws have been broken, but which laws have some moral basis for being. It is not surprising that laws here find their basis in Christian thought. Freedom of (not from) religion is one of the bedrock tenets of the founding, and fighting for the birth of the country. In this day and age we tend to confuse our prepositions.

We also tend be confused by a justifiable sense of moral outrage when a public official abuses our trust when it is juxtaposed with a sense of civic duty. There are numerous examples of this kind of public abuse of trust everyday. Spitzer is not the first, nor will he be the last. Fortunately, justice is blind; and Miss Justice does not care what religion the perpetrator is, nor what moral defect caused the offense. Though our law making, and our systems of enforcement are imperfect, they are still pretty damn good. We do not need to feel a personal burden of guilt because we want our laws enforced, nor do we need to feel religiously inadequate because we have these “holier than thou” moments. Our laws, and the mechanisms we have in place to enforce them, enable us to perform and function as a society at a much higher quality of life than we could without them.

People in the public trust must be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. That’s what the term “public trust” really means. In the absence of altruism, it is what we the people naively depend upon. These elected officials may go into public office morally upright, with a good heart, and good public minded goals, but they are so easily swayed by their own sense of power, and the powerful forces that swirly about them like hyenas – the trappings of power, that unless they are absolutely extraordinary, they succumb to their own personal weaknesses at the expense of the greater good. When that happens, these people must be held to account. Rarely are they.

I take some issue with the John 8 reference. The Spitzer situation may appear similar on the surface, but save for similarity of the crime, it is not. Our government operates independently of the church, the Pharisees did not. Our laws, which may have some religious basis in their origin, are not religious. They are administered by a government that separates itself from religion, much like the Romans, but without the autonomy the Romans gave to religious peoples under their governance to cure their own societal ills. Those religious leaders were part and parcel of local governance that operated with independence and with complete authority over life and death…even within the Roman city state political structure. Jewish citizenry was held to account for both its religious laws and the laws of the State. We have only one set of laws. When they are broken, we a complex system to ferret out the merits of the charges in a fair (debatable, but please afford the doubt for the sense of the argument) and deliberate fashion.

To the point of whether this kind of transgression reflects on Spitzer’s ability to “be a good Governor,” you bet. This is a man who thinks everything of power and nothing of commitment. He has not been honest with himself, honest with his wife and family, honest in his financial dealings, nor honest in his pursuit of the public trust. If he cannot be true to anything, he cannot be trusted to make decisions that are independent of his own personal foibles. He can make no decision for the common good (the trust we place in him to make) without being at cross purposes with his personal agenda. It is unlikely that Spitzer’s personal agenda and the public agenda intersect in very many places. We should not be reticent in rejecting these people, no matter what their moral/legal deficiency is. Everyday they sit in office is another day that we do not benefit from a better example of true leadership. And, God knows, we need better examples.
 

I just feel so sorry for his wife and kids. How sad is that? I am not without sin or whatever, but to go through having your spouse/Dad do that is bad enough... but then, when it is on every channel, on every late night monologue... it is just BRUTAL.