Pine Grove Christian Fellowship

Marvin Olasky, editor of World Magazine, the bi-weekly Christian news magazine, always has a column inside the back cover. The one in the July 18, 2009 issue is the best "take" I've read yet on the failings of Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina.

The column is titled Riptide: Sometimes we realize we're swimming into a deadly current. Olasky begins:

Plato wrote, "Give me the songs of a nation and it matters not who writes the laws." Would a modern corollary, for many Christians, juxtapose songs, films, and even television minseries against the teachings of the Bible? 

I ask that question while reflecting on the tragedy of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, and what it tells us about ways in which Christians and non-Christians are similar and different. One similarity: The power of the riptide. 

Olasky goes on to explain how the falsehoods our culture teaches, when we hear them over and over, tend to influence us, and we forget what the Bible teaches. Using Sanford's own words, Olasky shows how Sanford is a perfect illustration of this.

CLICK HERE and read on about the difference between how a Christian and a non-Christian handles serious failings. (Believe it or not, some non-Christian pundits would have counseled Sanford to cover it up.)  --Steve