The Ugliness of Sin

I have a confession to make. As I watched the Ohio man whose wife ran off with another man give an interview this morning, I wanted him to say what church he attended. Why? So I could immediately begin justifying what occurred and reasoning that the same could not happen in my church. It started with the piece leading up to the interview saying that the mother felt that she could not get a divorce, but instead would have to run off and start a new life because of her deeply held spiritual beliefs. Immediately I thought, she must be Church of Christ because of the stand that they take on divorce. I jumped to that conclusion because surely it had to be a church that put so much emphasis on the outer and works. My next thought was, maybe it is not a Christian church, but Mormon or some other type of religion. Mormons have the reputation of being oppressive to women. Cults are often oppressive to women. Soon the husband was talking, and I was only looking for hints as to what type of church it might be. Who cares if they are supportive, what do they believe? Who cares if they are stepping up and showing you love as the body of Christ (if it is a Christian church) should, what are they doing about her? Are they giving you permission to divorce since it is probably justified in Matthew? These are the things I wanted to know. Sure, I said one of those token prayers that you say for someone when you know it is the right thing to do so you do it, but your heart is not fully behind it. You know the type - the ones we pray in church to justify the spreading of gossip in the guise of prayer requests. There was no mention of the name of Jesus or even of God by the man, so maybe he is Scientologist or Episcopalian (don't they have an atheist preacher?) or Unitarian. All of these thoughts were going through my head.

These thoughts are sinful. I wanted to find some way that my religion and religious systems were better than this family. I wanted to distinguish myself from this family because the word church was used. I wanted to be able to say, well, what do you expect from a religious system that does not believe the true gospel, or is oppressive to women, or is legalistic. In reality, this situation could happen in any church that teaches the true gospel. Divorce is sinful. So is adultery. Churches should take both very seriously. If the church does take it seriously, it may result in decisions like this woman made. Instead of judging or distinguishing, I should have been driven to sadness over the sin at the heart of the scandal. Humans are sinners. There is a family hurting because of many sins, some of which are now very public, and some of which are probably very private. A church is hurting, and I sincerely hope it is a church that preaches the true gospel because the church has an opportunity to be the picture of the gospel to this family. I should also be humbled because my own sinfulness is apparent as I judge complete strangers and try to make myself feel better than them. I will also try to allow the Holy Spirit change the mindset that allowed me to think the sinful thoughts first into thinking about the ugliness of sin in my own life when I see others caught in a public way.