Day 1175 – The Prodigal Son

The Crawdad Hole had a post about forgiveness among Christians. Supporting someone like Newt Gingrich isn’t hypocrisy, it’s a sign of accepting his admission of bad behavior. This reminded me of an old Bible story. This was my comment.

The forgiveness thing is like the Biblical story of the prodigal son.

For those unfamiliar, here it is in a nutshell. A rich guy had two sons who were each going to get half of his property as an inheritance. One son decided he wanted his half now. So he left with a ton of money and blew it on booze and women and what not. After his fair weather friends ditched him, he ended up working at a farm where the pigs got better food than he did.

So, the son eventually decides to go groveling back to his father, who treats his employees a lot better and work for him. Well, the father is ecstatic that his son returned and prepares a great feast. He’s willing to welcome him back into the family and his share of what’s left. The other son is angry because he did everything right all along. The father says that his other son was lost and is now found and that’s the greatest thing that could happen.

That’s one of the interesting aspects of Christianity. It’s great to be a goody goody and do all the right things all your life. In fact, it eases some of the hardship by living right in the first place. Still, it’s even better to have done wrong and found your way back because you had to deal with a lot of crap on your way to repentance. Romney is the good son, Gingrich is the prodigal son. Romney’s good work is why he has a stable family. Newt has two divorces in his wake and strained family relations. Who’s had more crap to deal with on their way to being right with God?

The Democratic party has been more puritanical about personal morality for years, under the guise of pointing out immorality as hypocrisy. McCain was divorced. Reagan was divorced. Sarah Palin had a daughter who was pregnant and an unwed teenager. If they have “family values” it may be because they know what the alternative is like.

Contrary to popular leftism, people are not damaged goods when they sin. They can seek forgiveness and be forgiven. What some people at the fringes of society want is there to be no forgiveness because they want no sin. No forgiveness leads to no learning as well. I’d rather have a candidate capable of learning rather than a president incapable of understanding when he’s wrong.

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