(Christian Headlines By Jim Denison) Fallout from the Ashley Madison scandal continues. The company’s CEO has resigned; several people who used the adultery website have committed suicide. And some 400 clergy resigned publicly from their ministries last Sunday.Let’s put that number in perspective.One pastor who seeks to have an affair is one too many. Infidelity shatters the spouse, devastates the children, and wounds the congregation. Pastors who violate their marriage vows sin against God, their family, and the sheep they are called to shepherd.
At the same time, 400 pastors constitute 0.00125 percent of the Ashley Madison database. They make up 0.067 percent of the estimated 600,000 vocational ministers in the U.S. Critics who draw lines from Ashley Madison to Josh Duggar and recent exposes of materialistic televangelists slander hundreds of thousands of faithful ministers. Clearly, some condemn fallen believers so they can justify their rejection of our faith.
Here’s the irony: those who criticize sinful Christians are more right than they know.
In today’s reading from My Utmost For His Highest, Oswald Chambers states: “We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness.” Chambers elaborates: “At all costs, a person must have a right relationship with God. . . . God has only one intended destiny for mankind—holiness. His only goal is to produce saints.”
Our holy Father intends his children to live holy lives. How can we cooperate with him in accomplishing this goal?
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