If the Christian life is one of continual repentance, then what do we do with a minister who has lived in sin for many years, justified his sin with spiritual abuse, and disqualified himself from ministry–most of which was learned after his death?
One of my friends brought up an apologist who recently passed away and was subsequently exposed as having lived an abusive life for years. Before his death, we thought he was a great Bible teacher. Now, we slough off his books at the used bookstore. Aren’t his books still as good as they were before? He compared the apologist to King David, who sinned far more extensively than we usually give him credit for. We overlook Solomon’s gross sins too.
I didn’t say anything this time. I’ve argued my case before, and maybe it doesn’t sit well with me.
The comparison to David doesn’t work. He and Solomon are categorically different. We look to them and see the Lord’s saving grace unbound.
Should we reject a man’s published work for a pattern of sin mostly uncovered after his death? Does known sin raise any theological questions? The man wrote a book on living the faith we profess, and we should consider its merit on the words of the books, not the life of the author? If this were a local pastor, would we continue to distribute his books, studies, and recordings as if it’s all academic? No. If he were a local pastor, we would expect him to be excommunicated were he still alive. The filth of his sin touches everything.
But that argument doesn’t sit easily with me, because I think of readers down the road who won’t know of the sin. They’ll only know the books, and perhaps the Lord will demonstrate his unbounded grace yet again.
I assume you know whom I’m talking about. It still hurts to remember it. Why do I feel betrayed by someone I didn’t know personally? I don’t know. It isn’t academic for me.
What else do we have today?
Deception: I recently listened to the first season and a little more of a well-produced podcast by Brian Brushwood called “The World’s Greatest Con.” Brian is a good storyteller, and this show is dynamite. The first season is on Operation Mincemeat, a scheme from WWII to deceive the Nazis into thinking the Allied would attack Italy.
Artificial Intelligence: “With every passing day, OpenAI looks more like Napster or the many defunct piracy platforms—it relies on the creativity of others to make a buck. And there are plenty of laws against that.”
This rings true to me. Microsoft’s Bing AI presents itself as if you’re talking to an intelligent friend, but it doesn’t give answers any better than regular search results. Microsoft seems to think we all want to search as if we’re talking to someone IRL, but if it doesn’t understand us like a friend could, it’s pointless.
Orthodox Church: St. George’s Church in Drohobych, Lviv Oblast (west Ukraine), is a gorgeous work. It “is a unique monument of Galician wooden architecture of the late 15th – early 16th centuries. It is one of the best preserved monuments of old Ukrainian sacral architecture.”
Also, St. Andrew’s Church in Kyiv (via The Cultural Tutor).
Coffee: I don’t mind pumpkin spice, but I don’t drink it either. “Six bucks is a small price to pay (apart from still being scandalous and highway robbery) for the appearance of agency.”
Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
I wonder about cases like the Apologist too. Often in connection with old friends of mine (so many of them) with whom I did ministry in my youth. Some of them have moved to more “reasonable” kinds of Christianity; a few have abandoned the faith altogether. What was the nature of our fellowship, I wonder. What of the ministry we did?
It may be related to the ancient Donatist controversy, where the church had to decide how to treat priests who had renounced their faith under persecution, then wanted to be reinstated. Could they be, if they repented? Were their sacraments valid?
The church decided they must be reinstated, and all their baptisms and communions were indeed valid. Because it didn’t depend on their personal faithfulness, but on the faithfulness of God and His Word.
It’s not an exact parallel, but perhaps the principle is close to the same.
I’d say it is the same as Donatist problem. I don’t know enough of the details to know whether I would fully agree with their solution or want to hold that the sacraments were still valid though the priests could not return.