Being Right and Behaving Badly

I am in one the ‘liberal’ denominations that you hear about all the time. You know the one. In my view, when Anglicanism is done right, it is hard to beat the beauty and wonder of its liturgy and piety. My Holy Week was a prime example. Our church is of the orthodox and traditional bent and does not go along with the (breaking) winds of revisionist religion.

One common trait I’ve noticed, however, is that when conservatives become embroiled in the ‘culture wars’ of the church and the state, then something quite awful can happen. If you happen to hold the right views on a matter, then ‘all is fair in love and war.’ That is, we turn a blind eye to our own sin and our own sinners.

Therefore, our priests and heroes, if they are caught in grave sin, we think and say they are being ‘set up’ my the liberal elite. Our guys can steal and cheat and if they are called on the carpet then it is the ‘revisionist’s fault’ for exposing the wrongdoing.

Isn’t there another way? Are not the ‘culture wars’ just a convenient way to cover up our own sin? Isn’t it easier to see the speck in the other’s eye than the log in our own?

We need to call wrongdoing wrongdoing, even when the sinner is one of our own. And we also need to humbly get on our face before God and plead at the Table, “Surely it is not I Lord!”