Thursday, March 13, 2008

Sin Makes You Stupid

The big news story this week is that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught by the FBI engaging the services of a prostitution agency. What tipped the feds off were suspicious transfers of funds to the prostitution ring. The irony is that Spitzer, a former state Attorney General, would know better than most the tactics that law enforcement agencies use to identify illegal activities such as those he was engaging in. He should have known better.

Spitzer's career and possibly marraige have been ruined. He could face prison time. Pundits on TV and radio have been discussing how he could have been so careless. The answer is simple.

As the pastor of a church I used to attend liked to say, "Sin makes you stupid."

I've seen a TV program a few times called "To Catch a Predator" in which men are lured to a house where they believe they will have sex with a teenager whom they've been chatting with online. The house is wired with cameras and microphones and the police are waiting in the wings. The men caught have included pastors, rabbis, schoolteachers and doctors. It's sad and pathetic to see these men publically humiliated, but of course, not as bad as what might have happened had it been a real 14 year old in the house. The sentiment most often expressed by these men when they're caught is that they knew what they were doing was wrong and they should have known better. Sin makes you stupid.

I can't really join the media chorus in pointing fingers and clucking tongues at Spitzer and those similarly caught and exposed. When I begin to, the words echo back to me, "Be careful if you think you stand, lest you fall." (1 Corinthians 10:12)

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