Prejean Again

I wrote yesterday's blog several days ago. I wrote it because of the flood of emails I was receiving from Christians excited about this new voice for right. It was coincidence that the blog posted on the day of the latest revelations: Carrie Prejean may lose her Miss California crown because she posed for semi-nude pictures.

The responses are somewhat predictable and somewhat sad. Suddenly we find moralists who oppose redefining marriage to include same sex couples rising to defend this kind of error ... you know, the kind that mostly moral people would oppose in any other situation. How does that work? On the other hand, those opposed to Carrie already are cheering. "See?" they say. "She's no saint."

I am not here to defend Carrie Prejean. She is to be commended for standing for truth. She is not the person that we should be pointing to as a scintillating example of Christian living. But one website expressed the popular anti-Prejean sentiment that I just had to address. They said she was a "self-proclaimed Bible thumper" (I don't remember that proclamation, but, hey, maybe I'm not keeping up) who is "a sinner too".

Now, people, apparently a lot of people aren't paying attention. Whether or not she is a "self-proclaimed Bible thumper" (What does that have to do with anything?), there is for every Christian only one way by which we become Christians -- we start by admitting that we are sinners and then place our faith in our only hope, Jesus Christ. Is that hard to understand? Carrie Prejean is a sinner. She proved it with photos she shouldn't have taken. But we didn't need pictures. I could have told you that from the start.

You see, just because someone sins doesn't mean they can't recognize sin. Being a sinner doesn't disqualify me from knowing what sin is. (That doesn't even make sense, does it?) We are called to be holy -- to be perfect -- but none of us has arrived. Militant sinners everywhere seem to like the phrase, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." They forget that sinners like Peter and Paul had no problem pointing out sin when they saw it.

I'm not defending Carrie Prejean. But, come on, people, who best to know sin when they see it? Hypocrites are people who claim not to sin while they sin. So, which is it? Is it the Christians who admit first and foremost that they are sinners that are hypocrites, or is it those who argue that "Sin is perfectly okay and we're not doing anything wrong by doing it" that are hypocrites? One side says, "We are intolerant and judgmental of sin" and the other side says "We are not intolerant or judgmental ... but we hate everything you believe". Which of those is hypocritical? You tell me.