Redeemer Church, Santa Maria, CA

I noted last night the good folks at MSNBC going after the philanderer Sen. John Ensign, Republican, who just fessed up to an extra-marital affair. According to Olbermann and Maddow, sexual scandals are worse for Republicans than they are for Democrats since the Republican Party is the “family values” party. Would this then make the Democrates, like their economist Keynes, are all Immoralists? But promiscuous Republicans are hypocrites, and there is, obviously, nothing worse than hypocrisy.

I, however, fear a world without hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is impossible without transcendent standards. The person who consistently lives up to all of their ideals uses their own natural inclinations as the ideal. If there is no hypocrisy it is because there are no longer moral standards by which to judge a person’s actions. It would seem that this is the kind of world that Olbermann and Maddow are advocating in the realm of an individual’s sexual relationships, but it is unthinkable that they should apply this logic to virtues such as honesty, transparency, equality under the law, etc.

If so many married couples stray in their fidelity, what should we do? Remove the stigma of adultery? That is a recipe for social disaster! What if we follow this logic to its ultimate conclusion in other areas of life? Everybody will do what is right in his/her own eyes. As Nietzsche argued, the only right is the will to power. Dictators are remarkably consistent with their own standards.

As a Christian, I believe that God has revealed his law to us as the standard by which we must live. The Bible also states that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Yes, we Christians are all hypocrites together. We hold forth God’s law as the standard and we frequently violate it in the way we live. Thank God that he has provided a way of forgiveness through Jesus Christ, “by faith, apart from works of the law” (Rom 3:28).