The New York Times rounds up reaction to the Mark Sanford Saga from leading pundits on matters of faith.
One such is Chuck Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, and an extremely influential figure withing evangelicalism.
His advice: I love you, Mark, but you need to love your wife.
As a longtime fan of Governor Sanford and as one who has sympathy for people who have fallen from grace (as I have), I have one piece of advice for the governor: go home and get your family in order.
I have no doubt the governor is sincere believing that God has spoken to him.... But the only way to test whether God has really spoken is to see if what you think He has said is confirmed by Scripture. If the governor looks at the Bible, he will see that the story of David is told as a cautionary tale (not something to be emulated) and that it led to the greatest writing of confession and repentance in the Bible (Psalm 51).
.... It’s time to bring this tawdry and embarrassing soap opera to a quick ending. I pray for the governor, his wife and his four kids. Get that together, governor, and everything else will fall into place.
All the reactions are refreshing and a nice break from exclamation points.
For example, a highlight from Steven Waldman:
Though they never quite say it, a politician who invokes the “I am a sinner” language is subtly implying: a) there’s nothing especially unusual about what I did and therefore I needn’t be punished severely, if at all. b) “Let he who is free of sin cast the first stone,” which is to say, don’t judge me harshly, since you’re just as bad.
The problem with this is that Jesus never suggested that being cleansed of spiritual sin meant you were exempted from temporal punishment. A murderer who accepts Christ might still get to heaven, but he doesn’t get sprung from Leavenworth.
