Meditation 1010
Apparently only 8 out of the 10 Commandments apply these days. For men, anyway. Just ask Pat.
by: John Tyrrell
Your thoughts on this Meditation are welcome. Please use the contact page to provide your comments for publication.
Early this week, televangelist Pat Robertson excused David Petraeus's affair with his biographer saying:
"She is an extremely good looking woman. She is a marathon runner. She runs Iron Man triathlons. So she's out running with him and writing a biography. I think the term is 'propinquity.'"
Propinquity. She just happens to be there - right next to the General. That apparently makes it OK in Pat's book. He went on to say:
"The man's off in a foreign land and he's lonely and here's a good looking lady throwing herself at him. I mean, he's a man."
As I've made pretty clear elsewhere on this site, I don't have much time for the 10 Commandments - but, unlike Robertson I don't make preaching Christianity my life's work; unlike Robertson, I don't sell tapes on Amazon with my old sermons on the 10 Commandments; unlike Robertson, I don't periodically spout-off linking various disasters, natural and man-made, to God's vengeance for people flouting God's will.
Logically, Robertson should be absolutely against any breach of the 10 Commandments, particularly by a prominent public figure who might be expected to set an example. After all, God might get vexed and send a hurricane. Petraeus clearly broke both the 7th and the 10th, the prohibitions against adultery and against coveting another man's wife. And Robertson, who had no compelling reason to even address the issue on his TV show, simply excused him - after all "he's a man." And she happened to be handy (I think the term is 'propinquity'.)
And she was a woman? Robertson didn't say specifically, but, is he condemning the other party in this? She only broke the 7th Commandment - there's nothing in the 10th commandment against coveting someone else's husband. But after all she's a woman. A woman who was 'throwing herself at him." And that choice of words demonstrates Robertson's implicit condemnation of the other party. This even though press reports at the time Robertson spoke did not indicate who initiated the affair. And to the best of my knowledge, they still don't. I think Robertson simply made an assumption and essentially put all the blame on the woman, and excused the man. A man who could have said "no."
Pat Robertson is on the record* as being against moral relativism. Yet, once again he has publicly shown himself to be a full blown moral relativist. A moral relativist with respect to the 10 Commandments. And a moral relativist with respect to men and women.
Note:
* As one example, he's a signatory to a document “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium,” which condemns, among other things moral relativism.