Believers in Christ are getting more wayward all the time, with lives consumed by endless struggles of the flesh.
Or are they? Authentic faith does not dwell in sin forever, but eventually there's a conviction by the Holy Spirit followed by genuine repentance and change.
So the 7 million estimated weekly fans of self-declared Christian mom blogger Glennon Doyle Melton have been parties to her heart-wrenching struggles with alcohol, bulimia, pills and more. And all our hearts should go out to those who try to be overcomers. Not all of us share these so openly as Glennon, nor dwell almost endlessly on them, however. But the grace that is the hallmark of our faith should be extended to her for trying.
But then there's the latest news. She is now proudly "married" to a woman. And still identifying as a Christian.
How many more people who call themselves believers are we going to have to watch dive enthusiastically into this popular sin?
Melton and her blog called Momastery have been featured in gushing articles in recent years in the Washington Post and elsewhere as she lays bare her very complicated and painful experience of parenting, marriage and life. Along the way, she was sometimes touchingly funny, but she also revealed who was at the center of her faith – herself. And that faith included some very unbiblical ideas, including support for homosexuality-as-marriage.
Her confessions covered her husband's chronic unfaithfulness, the abortion of their first child before they married and her husband's porn habit. It soon became a train wreck in progress. And one had to wonder if many of her fans were lapping up the rationalizations. "I don't have such a sinful life after all, compared to this."
But then everything suddenly became wonderful. Glennon divorced her husband of 14 years and quickly reconstructed another life. The new partner is former Olympian soccer star Abby Wambach, who also just obtained a divorce – at least that's what she calls it – from another woman.
Abby is a lesbian and now, apparently, so is Glennon Doyle Melton, after her years of heterosexual hand-wringing.
Yet another exception to the "born that way" claim.
The back story is even more sensational. Abby Wambach has had a tumultuous year, arrested just last spring for driving under the influence. She admitted to a history of abusing vodka and pills such as Vicodin, Ambien and Adderall.
But then abracadabra, Abby declared recovery and moved on quickly to get a non-divorce from a non-marriage and enter into another non-marriage with a woman who just left her husband – the man who had a history of being unfaithful.
This is Kardashian Christianity, or more accurately, a really, really bad witness by faith posers.
With the reach of Glennon's blog and social media posts, and her support from pseudo-Christian celebrities like Oprah, think of the many people being misled by all this drama and licentiousness. She told Oprah in 2016 that the only identity she claims these days is "child of God."
But God's true children at least try to be obedient and listen to Him. I could add many paragraphs about what I take away from her blog posts. Not faith, not depth, but clever platitudes of self-absorption from a gal who is very worldly and quite full of herself.
Aren't you tired of celebrities who dive into every self-indulgence and slap the precious name of Jesus on their lives to make it all OK? And talk endlessly about the "pain," most of which is self-inflicted?
And then there are Glennon's children. She now Tweets and blogs about family dinners with her three children and all three adults – their now-divorced mom and dad, plus the new lesbian so-called "wife." And there's so much "love," Glennon writes.
I'm not seeing that really. This looks more like vain adults with messed-up track records on all sides, lots of publicity and vulnerable children in the middle of it all.
Children are not OK with this stuff, although they may smile and go along, wanting a sense of normalcy, even manufacturing it themselves if the adults are too preoccupied to do so. Most long for parents who are faithful to one another, not a mom publicly involved with another woman.
The pictures posted of the lesbian ceremony showed Glennon looking like a bride and Abby dressed like a groom. Why is it that so many homosexual relationships mimic the pairing that one can only have authentically in a male/female union?
This screams phony, phony, phony. The way-too-public, desperate search for fulfillment on proudly sinful terms is excruciating to watch as mainstream media gush over this unfaithful representative of Christendom.
But this is not my faith. Is it yours?
We can all pray that Glennon repents and turns toward goodness, faithfulness and self-control, some of the fruits of the Spirit. And that her partner and she separate and realize the sin of their actions. But meanwhile, let's not indulge her by bowing down before this craving for celebrity. It just becomes a stumbling block for others to go down a similar road of faith-sprinkled denial.
The daunting message of Hebrews comes to mind: "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment. … Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10:26-27, 29)
There's no Jesus in the precious Gospels, nor in His omnipresence as part of the eternal Godhead, who would nod affirmatively at this behavior. She has to know in her heart of hearts that she's standing defiantly on a precipice, spitting at what He has taught us about family, marriage and sexuality.
God help her – truly.
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