When the rumors about John Edwards’ sexual impropriety turned into a full-blown news story and then a confession I sort of shrugged and thought “this is not news, it is a reminder.”  First, this has happened before, and second being in a Reformed denomination “sin” is not just something we do, “sinful” is something that we are.  So I pretty much stopped following the story, what with the situation in the country of Georgia and the Olympics seeming a lot more important.  One thing that did catch my attention in many of those news reports was that so many of them contained a litany of other politicians from both sides of the aisle that had their own problems with marital infidelity.

But today I came across an article on Ethics Daily that pointed out an interesting twist on this story:  Back in June of 2007 on a CNN candidates forum about politics and religion Edwards was asked about the “Biggest sin he had ever committed.”  He gave a typical non-committal answer that he sins multiple times every day and that we are all sinners, that we all fall short, and we all need to confess and repent.

What caught my attention was not so much that he said this on the air after his affair had ended, but rather the article pointed out that when he issued his statement this week the affair was not referred to in terms that would sound as much like a “sin” but “a serious error in judgment.”  While this wording avoids the cosmic implications, I will give him credit that at the end of the statement he acknowledges that he lost perspective and uses scripture-like language about being “stripped” and “made low”:

But in thinking about this another thing jumped out at me which has been one of my criticisms of G-6.0106b in the PC(USA) Book of Order:  At the present time we have two ethics situations playing out among prominent national politicians — John Edwards’ sexual impropriety and Ted Stevens’ indictment for financial impropriety.  Which is getting more press?  Is one of these a “bigger sin” than the other.  OK, I’ll admit that there is a confession and the “other woman” in the Edwards case and Stevens’ is denying any wrong-doing.  Still, in the case of Edwards no civil laws were broken while Stevens has criminal charges against him.  In general, it seems to me that a national figure’s sexual sins get bigger play in the media than other types of wrong doing.  If you believe Google News counts, John Edwards has 17,500 while Ted Stevens has 7,000.

As I suggested above, the PC(USA) has done something similar with the Book of Order.  While G-6.0106b talks about “any self-acknowledged practice the confessions call sin” the section singles out “fidelity and chastity.”  I am not so much advocating change in the language as I am for perspective and balance in how we regard different sins.  Even in sexual sins, do we give the same weight and seriousness to heterosexual adultery by officers of the church as we do with homosexual relationships?

For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. [Romans 3:23]

(And just in case you thought about the irony of John Edwards name, some headline writer at the Hartford Courant did produce “J. Edwards in the hands of an angry God” for one of their columnists although the column seems to have no religious references.  Sometimes a good headline is hard to pass up.)