Arrogance and Disgrace

In Which I Ponder Steve Lawson and Christopher and Richard Hays

File:Christ Crowned with Thorns, from The Small Passion MET DP816043.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Sorry to be so excessively late to the keyboard this morning. I am writing two or three things at once, and keep clicking between all my open tabs, trying not to lose track of any stray thoughts. Upwards of which has been the astute point that Matt made yesterday. “The disgrace of Richard Hays’ fall,” he said on Twitter, “is every bit as deep and terrible as the disgrace of Steve Lawson.” I thought about that all day as I ran from one task to the other, first listening to this helpful message by Al Mohler, and then when I collapsed in the evening to read just a little bit more of The Widening of God’s Mercy by Richard and Chris Hays.

It was an interesting contrast, honestly, to watch Mohler standing behind the huge pulpit imploring the chapel congregation to count the cost of the sins of adultery and unfaithfulness. It isn’t just a matter of the pastor’s personal reputation. What Lawson has done is bring down disgrace upon the church as a whole. The church has so many enemies—Satan being the chief one, but others who are gladdened when Christians turn out to be hypocrites and liars. When Christians sin, those wondering about God, who may be tilting in one direction or another, are given too many reasons to wander away. We all get a taste of the shame when the shepherds fail to proclaim the truth by word and example. Mohler said several times, “Great and terrible is the fall.”

What’s going on with Richard and Chris Hays is not quite so straightforward. They haven’t ruined everything through personal sin. In fact, as far as I can tell, they are upright in their conduct and regarded honorably in their communities and places of work. Certainly, as Richard Hays acknowledges, the Christian world has held him in high esteem because of his clear writing about what the Bible says about human sexuality in Moral Vision. His fall is similarly very great, though in some sense worse because he does not know that he has fallen. At least Lawson is bearing all the consequences of his sin so that he might come to full repentance. Hays is selling books, and receiving the accolades of many Christians who are looking for reasons to stray from the truth.

Watching clips of Lawson, he appears now, after the fact, arrogant rather than authoritative. The confidence of his preaching, unsupported by personal repentance and a godly manner of life is offensive rather than persuasive. This is not up for dispute by anyone that I have seen. On the other hand, Richard and Christopher Hays are apparently displaying the modern fruits of humility and meekness by capitulating to the zeitgeist on the matter of human sexuality.

Except that—for me anyway—their arrogance drips from the page. The whole introduction, which is as far as I’ve got, strikes me as disgraceful, the word of the day.