Scott: Rightly or wrongly, if I were a person that placed myself in the public eye and subsequently had a national holiday named in my honor... then I would fully expect people to critically review my past and character. It goes along with fame and position... again, rightly or wrongly.
Gina: He was not alive when a national holiday was named after him.
Rightly or wrongly is a major issue here. It is being wrongly done.
Even if it's to be expected. Our standards are not those of the world. We're Christians.
Scott: But to your point, if I were going to cast myself as a moral evangelist then I would be careful that my own behavior, at least current behavior, was consistent with my message.
Gina: Again, we are Christians. That isn't the Christian standard, which should consistantly be "my behavior will be up to God's standards, regardless if one person or the world is watching."
And think about it. How many people are watching you? Do you know? Think of all the people you run across every day, all your neighbors, all of God's angels and all of Satan's angels who are looking at you every day to see what you are doing with your salvation.
I don't buy that you or I have a lesser influence when all is said or done than anybody else, or that the standards we should be up to are any higher or lower depending on how high up the ladder of success we go.
Scott: It
was King who said that a person should be judged on the content of their character... apparently the day after he committed adultery.
Gina: Apparently? Do you know that? Where did you read it? Is it gossip? Is it rumor? Does it make slamming his dead self years after on the world wide net ok? If so, why?
Scott: I am not now guilty of the sins that MLK was accused of being guilty of right up until the day of his death. I acknowledge that my past is riddled with sin. If I ever became a public figure... I wouldn't attempt the futile exercise of trying to cover the fact up but would instead acknowledge up front that I have a past that wasn't uniformly God honoring.
Gina: You ARE a public figure. You run into the "public" every day, you deal with people, everyone is listening to you and watching you almost every second unless you're in your own home, and then your kids are going out and telling all your friends what you do at home too.
Scott: None of this changes God's standard nor our obligation to subject those we honor to its dictates.
Gina: I agree with the first part, but you seem to disagree with yourself on the second.
Where do you get that a person had to be sinless, or at least not guilty of major sins, in order to be a great person, and even greatly used by God? All through the Bible we have great men of God committing gross sins. Harlots and murderers adulterers all over the place, and God himself seemed fine with calling them His own, with blessing them, with forgiveness.
Why are we harder on people than God himself? Does that not strike you as very, very, wrong?
