HEELCATCHER

“I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife.” (Josh Duggar, 8/20/15)

Josh Duggar’s story is sad because it involves real people, especially a wife and four children, who will be impacted by his choices for many years to come.

It is sad because it is being played out in the lives of many other marriages and families across the nation as the Ashley Madison website list is exposed.

And it is sad because Josh Duggar associated himself so closely with the Christian faith and with Christian values that his actions have led many to latch onto his story as another glaring example of Christian hypocrisy.

“Look at all these Christians, who claim to be so moralistic and pure, falling left and right to the very sins that they condemn. What a bunch of hypocrites!”

I hate to say it, but they are right.

To preach “family values” and then practice the very things that destroy the family is the essence of hypocrisy. The Christian church has not earned much credibility in our culture when it comes to sexual purity.

The apostle Paul confronted the moralistic “God-fearers” of his day with the same charge:

You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:21-24)

Here is the bottom line: There is no difference: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:22b-23).

If Josh Duggar’s story teaches us anything, it teaches us that we are no match for the sinful impulses, desires, and lusts of our own heart.

Sexual sin is powerful, pervasive, consuming, dominating, deceptive, destructive. What begins as a “small sin”…maybe even innocently…eventually becomes an addictive bondage. Though we claim to be in control, we soon lose control. Sin is not our slave. It is our master.

The sexual hedonist gives into his desires and pretends it is okay.

The sexual moralist gives into his desires and pretends he is okay.

Unfortunately the world only sees Christians as “sexual moralists.” And perhaps we have fed that image by focusing so much on preserving traditional sexual ethics in our society, by being so involved in political issues and debates. This is a difficult road for most Christians to walk as we live in a nation that calls its citizens to political involvement and freedom of speech.

How do you not say anything when a whole culture slides toward the deceptive lure of sexual freedom and the destruction of the stability of the family?

But as Christians involved in the public square we must always remember that it is a fine line between upholding the God-designed beauty and sanctity of sexuality and becoming a bunch of moralistic Pharisees.

It is a fine line between speaking the truth in love and preaching moralism in self-righteousness.

If our message as Christians is truly “good news,” then it must come from a heart that readily recognizes its own susceptibility and vulnerability to sin.

There but for the grace of God, go I.

It must be so rooted in God’s love that it doesn’t point at people but rather points them to the hope and healing that are only found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus alone has power over sin and over death. 

And it must be tied to a local body of believers that is vulnerable enough to admit sin and vigilant enough to help battle sin in community together.

Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul (1 Peter 2:11).

I weep for Josh Duggar. I weep for his family. And I weep for those who will use his story to justify their own indulgence in sin.

His story is not a cause for selfish celebration but rather sober reflection.

Sin is an enemy that I cannot fight on my own.

That’s why I need a power greater than my own.

And His name is still Jesus…despite what His followers may do.

Ernest Becker wrote The Denial of Death in 1973. It won a Pulitzer Prize for its psychological insight and its honest assessment of life.

Becker’s basic premise is that, as humans, we are both blessed and cursed. Blessed with a conscious awareness of ourselves and of life…but at the same time cursed with an awareness of our weakness, insignificance, and mortality.

We are simultaneously worms and gods. Or to put it more graphically, we are gods with anuses (51).

This tension is too much to bear so we compensate by lying to ourselves, denying our own immortality, and creating systems and cultures in which we can find some sense of heroic significance (think of our present-day over-fascination with sports).

Another solution is what Becker calls the romantic solution (160).

The love relationship of modern man is a religious problem. …If you don’t have a God in heaven, an invisible dimension that justifies the visible one, then you take what is nearest at hand and work out your problems on that.

Is self-consciousness too painful, the sense of being a separate individual, trying to make some kind of meaning out of who one is, what life is, and the like? Then one can wipe it away in the emotional yielding to the partner, forget oneself in the delirium of sex, and still be marvelously quickened in the experience (162).

Without God, we look for a romantic relationship or a sexual experience to give us a sense of identity, significance, and meaning to life. Our love partner takes the place of God. And sex becomes a type of worship.

It becomes our religion. Our salvation.

This is not unique to our culture. Ancient societies have often idolized sex and made it into a god or goddess and worshiped at its altar.

After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to the position of God? We want redemption—nothing less. We want to be rid of our faults, of our feeling of nothingness. We want to be justified, to know that our creation has not been in vain (167).

We hunger for a sense of transcendence. We want to lose ourselves in something greater than ourselves…yet at the same time maintain our own identity. Sex and romance seem like an oasis in this lonely desert so we run toward them. Pursue them. Sing about them. Fantasize about them. Worship them.

But as Becker notes:

Sex is a “disappointing answer to life’s riddle,” and if we pretend that it is an adequate one, we are lying both to ourselves and to our children. …In this sense, “sex education” is a kind of wishful thinking, a rationalization, and a pretense: we try to make believe that if we give instruction in the mechanics of sex we are explaining the mystery of life. We might say that modern man tries to replace vital awe and wonder with a “how to do it” manual (164).

The sexual partner does not and cannot represent a complete and lasting solution to the human dilemma. …No wonder. How can a human being be a god-like “everything” to another? No human relationship can bear the burden of godhood, and the attempt has to take its toll in some way on both parties (165-166).

So when sex and romance disappoint, do we run toward God? No. We run after another relationship. And then another. Holding onto the illusion…to the lie…that if only I find the right person, or maybe even the right sexual identity or gender, then I will be satisfied.

But the hunger remains. And soon sex becomes just another addictive drug to numb the pain of life.

The spiritual burdens of the modern love relationship were so great and impossible on both partners that they reacted by completely despiritualizing or depersonalizing the relationship. The result is the Playboy mystique: over-emphasis on the body as a purely sensual object. If I can’t have an ideal that fulfills my life, then at least I can have guilt-free sex—so modern man seems to reason (168).

The progression is fairly obvious:

• God is rejected.
• I search for a substitute.
• Sex becomes my god, my salvation.
• When it disappoints, I search for another partner or another experience.
• When this fails, I give up.
• Sex becomes my drug, my addiction.
• Eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow I die.

As much as our culture worships, exalts, and seeks to promote sex without limits, it won’t satiate the thirst of our souls.

Becker concludes:

Redemption can only come from outside the individual, from beyond, from our conceptualization of the ultimate source of things, the perfection of creation. It can only come…when we lay down our individuality, give it up, admit our creatureliness and helplessness (168).

Becker sees the desperate condition of humanity. He sees our limits. Our lies. Our false gods. Our utter helplessness.

Yet he cannot see any solution.

Having given up on religion as another illusion, he simply has no place to turn.

The most that any one of us can seem to do is to fashion something—an object of ourselves—and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force (285).

Becker ends his book worshiping at the altar of the Unknown God.

But this God has revealed Himself in real space-time history, in the person of Jesus Christ. And He can be known by those willing to humble themselves, admit their creatureliness and helplessness, and trust Him.

There is no other hope.

And no other salvation.

How is the church of Jesus Christ to respond to the recent Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage?

There is no doubt that our culture has changed. What was once unquestioned and taken for granted—marriage as the union of one man and one woman—has now been redefined and expanded to any two individuals (and feasibly more) of whatever gender or gender identity.

Marriage is no longer an objective, established institution that we affirm. Rather it is a subjective entity that we can define any way that we please.

It is the ultimate postmodern dream. There are no clear lines. There are no real distinctions. Everything is blurred, ambiguous, open to individual interpretation. We can not only redefine marriage but also gender, sex, family, identity, truth, even life itself.

Christianity, by its very nature, will stand against such a culture…not because it seeks to be oppositional but because it affirms a Creator who defines reality regardless of our personal opinions on the matter.

A church which believes in and is committed to objective Truth will inevitably clash against a culture which believes in and is committed to subjective truth as defined by each individual or by political correctness.

So how should we now live in this present culture?

We must follow Jesus Christ.

When Jesus walked this earth, He both preached Truth and practiced Love.

Perhaps no story in the Gospels illustrates this balance better than the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. The religious leaders cart this woman in front of Jesus looking to force His hand and make Him choose between truth and love, between law“ and compassion.

Will He deny truth in order to show compassion? Or will He uphold truth and allow the woman to be stoned to death without compassion?

In the face of this dilemma, Jesus calmly bends down and writes in the dust. There is much speculation about what He wrote. Scripture simply does not tell us. I tend to think that He began to write out the sins of those around Him. But whatever He marked out in the dust, it brought about conviction on those standing there.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

If we are going to live boldly, wisely, and compassionately in this present culture, then we must first acknowledge our own sin and our desperate need for grace. There is no room for pride or arrogance in the heart of a believer in Jesus Christ. Our own sin condemns us apart from the redeeming blood of our Savior.

Next, after the religious leaders have all dropped their stones and departed, Jesus speaks a simple message to the wayward, adulterous woman.

I do not condemn you. Go and sin no more.

While religious leaders can often forget their own sin and need for God’s grace, our present culture confuses love and compassion with affirmation of practically every sexual impulse and desire.

The message of religion is “We condemn you so stop sinning.”

The message of our culture is “We don’t condemn you so continue doing what you are doing.”

The message of the church of Jesus Christ must be “We don’t condemn you. You are made in the image of God and valuable in His eyes. He gave His own Son to die for You and to offer You new life. And we love you too much not to tell you of the devastating, destructive, deceptive nature of sin and to help you walk in the path of holiness and wholeness.”

This is Christ’s message of hope to those who will inevitably be wounded, deceived, and confused by our culture’s increasing affirmation of sex without boundaries.

May the church of Jesus Christ not only speak it but live it.