The Duplicitous Response to Tiger Woods Duplicity

So I'm a little amused by the media-world's reaction to the Tiger Woods saga.

Here's the deal: if we're going to worship sex as a god, it's going to have consequences. Give most any man the kind of temptations that Tiger Woods would receive on any given weekend and 95.9% of them would do what he did.

The thing that roots my commitment to my wife (perhaps strangely) is theology: what it means to be image-bearers of God, the God-ordained purpose of sexuality, a commitment to following Jesus no matter what the cost, and a growing understanding of what it means that marriage is supposed to mirror Christ's commitment to the church.

Mix in the power of God's Spirit. God's Spirit has worked in me over many years to shape my sexuality, my disciplines, my thoughts, my desires for marriage and to develop in me holy appetites for things more important and more eternal than sexual experiences. I pray that God will continue to develop and keep me. I'm not done battling for myself, my marriage, and my family. That battle will go on for most of my days.

But take all that away, and all you have is meager will-power contra raging hormones. Hormones will win that battle eventually in most cases. See Letterman, David, Clinton, Bill, and on and on and on and on.

I'm not saying that only Christians can be faithful to spouses. Obviously, some who do not hold to the same worldview that I do manage to honor their marriage vows. They would have to speak to their own motives for doing so. For myself, I can only see either the most will-powered, the most conscientious, or the least sought-after surviving apart from a commitment to something greater than themselves. .

Sadly, many who claim to (and some who indeed do) follow Jesus still fall into marital infidelity. For many, that point becomes a significant watershed place of repentance, awakening,and transformation co-mingled with the pain and brokenness.

Such is the power of the gospel, the power of the God who loves us and who offers forgiveness, that he can redeem even the most broken and willfully committed of acts.

I'm just saying that it's duplicitous for us as a culture to condemn a man who simply does what our culture has encouraged him to do for his entire life. It does not excuse what he's done. I believe what he's done is destructive and awful.

But I believe that because of a ton of other things that I believe that our culture en mass does not. On what grounds is the media throwing stones? And what's with all these glass houses everywhere?

Perhaps here, too, I am conflicted. Which symptom of cultural dis-ease would be worse: for the condemnation to rain down (in spite of the fact that there is no actual reason why most do so) or for no one to note or even care? Perhaps the latter would be far worse.

But both options would be indicative of cultural sickness. And perhaps that, in the end, is the point. Let's call it what it is: sickness. And let us, along with Tiger, repent and turn back to the God who made us (sexuality and all) that we might live the life we were made for.