As I record this, former congressman Anthony Weiner is staying in the race for mayor of New York. In case you forgot, he’s the one who resigned in 2011 after sexually suggestive tweets he sent to virtual strangers became public.
He’s staying in the race, despite reports of serial sexting under the nom de thumb “Carlos Danger.” He joins disgraced former governor Eliot Spitzer, who is running for comptroller, on the ballot.
It isn’t only New York: recently, South Carolina voters returned Mark Sanford, who ruined the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail” for the rest of us, to Congress.
These and other instances of politicians “falling from grace” and then being restored to a measure of respectability, are usually explained by the statement “Americans are a forgiving lot.”
As a Christian, I am all for forgiveness, as I’m sure you are. But what’s on display in these instances isn’t so much an example of forgiveness as it is of “cheap grace.” MORE: Carlos Danger and Cheap Grace
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