Words of Faith: Ashley Madison and the naked truth

Yikes!

The Ashley Madison leak apparently has a lot of people squirming, and families in distress. And some of those people are in Fort Mill (we topped the list in South Carolina of percentage of population with credit card activity on the site, according to WBTV News on Aug. 27).

Oops. So much for our clean-cut, conservative image!

But it’s a good thing that no people who claim religious faith are on the list, right? Uh, oh… some of this story plays out in very public ways (example: the Josh Duggar family) where his hypocrisy related to marriage being sacred, and biblical family values is exposed on national television. And I’m sure (but am not checking the list…) that there are people who don’t live their lives on TV, but do claim to be people of faith, who are on that list.

Probably in Fort Mill.

So what’s the deal? One part is that we all fail. The most honest folks are those who claim to strive to live as people of faith, rather than claim to succeed at it. Rick doesn’t go to church, because of all the hypocrites there. But my dear friend Berndt, who attended church faithfully, said that if he found a church free of hypocrites, he couldn’t go there, because he would ruin their perfection. Berndt was right – none of us lives fully and perfectly into the faith we claim. We all struggle to get it right. (And to live our lives out on national television, setting ourselves up as some sort of holy example, is guaranteed to merely set us up for a fall).

Simply being people of faith doesn’t protect us from making really bad choices. Bad choices are made as part of the human condition. We get hungry, angry, lonely or tired (HALT) and we seek to meet those needs in unhealthy ways. Some people drink too much. Some people take out their anger on folks around them. Some folks go looking for sexual adventure. Some people immerse themselves in work to the exclusion of anything else in their lives.

God doesn’t stop us from making those choices, but, thanks be to God, we have options- healthier ways to deal with ourselves. This is true for clergy as well as people in the pews. Conservative, liberal, progressive, evangelical, pentecostal we’re all in the same boat here.

Regular, honest relationships with other people are one gift from God to us. Time with people who really know us, flaws, temptations and all. Too often, faith oriented groups are the last place that people will talk about their failings. An accountability group, a spiritual director, or a therapist are options to make that happen.

As tempted as we are to judge those on the list (I confess, I have a hard time not feeling superior to them, especially those like Duggar), the most faithful response must be to deal with our own failings and relationships before dealing with someone else’s. I think Jesus said something about that. (see Matthew 7:3.)

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 8:36 AM with the headline "Words of Faith: Ashley Madison and the naked truth."