Three Sad Stories

Today three news stories saddened me. 

 

One was about Lance Armstrong. Once a hero to us he is now an embarrassment. I think the AP news headline read something like "Lance Armstrong's Downfall Now Complete".  Cheating, doping, lying - all led to the ruin of this once legendary sports hero. Tragic!

 Another headline read "Boy Scouts Perversion Files Detail Abuses...coverup". This one really hurt. I was a scout. I achieved the rank of Life scout and was inducted into the Order of the Arrow. I loved scouts. We camped out using old army ponchos for our cover instead of tents. We carried all our supplies on our backs.  We did hiking, canoeing, mountain climbing and more. I loved cooking out, the smell of a campfire, the stars overhead at night, sleeping out in a rain storm  and the friendship of other scouts. I could go on with my stories but the scouts and my scoutmasters helped mold my life. They were good men who wanted to help boys become good men. I have defended the scouts in their quest to maintain high moral standards in a culture without moral standards. And now, to read these headlines is a kick in the gut. It's painful  to see this once noble and respected organization in such scandal. I feel like I felt years ago as a young boy when the nasty old packers beat my beloved cowboys in the last seconds of the now infamous ice bowl to win the NFC championship. I was heartbroken then.  Today I wonder is there nothing noble and good anymore.

The third news story is about a man named Dinesh D'Souza. The headline read "The Rise and Fall of Dinesh D'Souza. D is a popular conservative author, the producer of the recent political documentary "2016", and for the past two years head of a small but influential Christian college. As I understand the story he got engaged to a young lady a while back. Nothing wrong with falling in love and getting engaged unless you are still married to your wife of twenty years. As he tells it he and his wife were separated at the time and had been for a good while. He also claims that there has been no intimacy between he and his finance but He has had to resign his post at the college. He has embarrassed himself, his family his school and more important his Lord. What struck me about this was the fact that he said he and his wife were planning to divorce and he had no idea that it was against Christian values to go ahead and get engaged even though still married. Really! If the leader of a Christian school doesn't have any more sense than that what does that say about the state of the Christian community in America. It made me think about an incident several years ago at our state Baptist convention. There was concern because there was a tenured Mormon professor teaching at one of our Baptist universities. As the president of that university was trying to explain how this all came about he made a statement that shocked me. He said that when he hired this professor he had no idea that Mormonism was a cult. Really! This guy had been a Baptist all his life. He had a list of degrees a mile long. Yet he said he had no idea. I remember wondering then about the spiritual vitality of our Baptist family. Doesn't look like much has changed.

Fallen heroes are nothing new. Shameful scandals and coverups are all too common these days. And for sure there have been far too many foolish Christians in recent decades. As a result the world grows more cynical, parents are more fearful  for their children and our faith that proclaims Christ as the way the truth and the life is open to being mocked once again. I know it won't be the last time such things happen but today it makes me sad. I am reminded that I really do need to pray for America. I don't know if I'm desperate enough yet, but stories like these are pushing me closer.