GN Commentary: June 26, 2009 - Another Moral Train Wreck

Have you examined your own life to see if you have begun to compromise with the standards you say you believe?

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Video Transcript

Once again the headlines scream the tawdry details of another high-profile politician caught up in sexual scandal. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford called one of those tearful press conference confessionals where prominent people admit their lack of personal morality and plead for public forgiveness.

When someone has betrayed the sacred vows of marriage, when we see a stunned victim like Jenny Sanford in tears, it's difficult to feel a great deal of compassion for the ones who caused such heartache by pursuing their own selfish desires without regard to the pain they would cause to those who trusted them. Their excuses—their pleas for understanding and forgiveness—ring hollow in the ears of most who hear them.

This should be a sober reminder to all of us of the danger of letting down our own moral guard, and should lead us to examine our own lives to see if we have begun to compromise with the standards we say we believe.

While there is no excuse for Governor Sanford's reprehensible conduct, one of his statements should make us stop and consider just how deeply we are committed to living by the values we claim as important. In a note written shortly after his adulterous affair began, Governor Sanford wrote, "In all my life I have lived by a code of honor and at a variety of levels know I have crossed lines I would have never imagined."

In his own words he has admitted that when he started down this path, he was unthinkingly taking the first steps to abandoning standards that had been a part of his life for years. Shouldn't such tragic events cause us to pause—at least for a moment—to ask ourselves if we could do something similar? And a second, even more important question comes to mind as well: "What can I do to protect myself and my family from that kind of pain?"

Most people remember the admonition of wise King Solomon when he wrote of what happens to the person who "plays with fire." Have you ever read what he wrote a few verses later? "But a man who commits adultery lacks judgment; whoever does so destroys himself. Blows and disgrace are his lot, and his shame will never be wiped away…" (Proverbs 6:32-33, NIV)

Governor Sanford shed genuine tears during his press conference, and he has many more tears ahead of him. Anyone who starts down that road will discover it's a dead-end street with nothing but broken hearts and lives waiting at the end.

For GN Magazine, I'm David Johnson.