December 2006

Secret Keepers in the News

by John Prin
Addiction Counselor
How many moral scandals can Americans handle? How much more shame and blame do we have left to spread around? Last month, Ted Haggard. The month before, Mark Foley. A year ago, James McGreevey. Have we reached condemnation fatigue yet? Will the parade of deceivers ever end?

Well, I have a secret - I share their shame and blame. Like them, I am a Jekyll-and-Hyde hypocrite guilty of having lived an unhealthy and destructive secret life, too.

As a person who has authored two books on the shady art of "secret keeping," I've also acted reputably in public while fooling everybody for decades about my hidden activities during stolen hours in secret. Although such times are now behind me personally, I too have intentionally concealed much in the same deceptive and calculated ways that "secret keepers" like Haggard, Foley, and McGreevy have.

Because I have lived a double life of hypocrisy, allow me to offer some perspectives.

Perspective #1: The parade of deceivers is nothing new. Recent history includes the once secretive-now-everybody-knows sexual escapades of Bill Clinton. Or there's Charles Lindbergh, the iconic aviator who fathered a family of three children in Germany proven in 2003 by DNA evidence of their paternity. Even Kirby Puckett faced an ugly divorce over an alleged 18-year extramarital affair and he, too, fell from grace.

Perspective #2: The long list of secret keepers share many characteristics in common. They are mainly privileged men, leaders in positions of power, wearing fancy suits and ties in the sunshine of day but operating under cloaks of cover-ups, alibis, and lies when nobody is looking.

It's ironic that the very things they tout as virtues in public, or oppose in their professional roles to the media, turn out to be the very vices they pander in privately.

Rev. Haggard rails against gay marriage in New Life Church but resigns over allegations of paying for gay sex in secret places.
Foley heads the U.S. congressional Committee on Prevention of Child Predators but emails sexually seductive messages to teen boys.

Perspective #3: Humans are divided, two-faced, forked-tongue creatures. The author of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Robert Louis Stevenson, had this to say: "Man is not truly one, but truly two. All human beings are commingled out of good and evil." In his classic tale, the honorable Dr. Jekyll descended into madness and lamented, "I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse self."

Given the scandal du jour, Rev. Haggard's evangelical elite status (and that of his predecessors in secret sin, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert), what does the Bible offer?

At our human core is duality. Jesus said of those who feign virtue or piety, "Woe to you, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23:27-8). Plainly his condemnation was strong and direct!

This is the same strong condemnation I feel at first hearing about the likes of Haggard. But Jesus also said, "Whoever has no sin, cast the first stone" (John 8:7). That counts me out. I'm guilty. I'm as two-faced and hypocritical as Haggard and his cohorts. Instead, I choose to pray for them (and myself), to forgive them (and myself), and to love them (and myself).

While these scandals are disheartening in their repetition and shameful similarities, who among us (when nobody is looking) acts with integrity and honesty every time? I certainly don't.

It's easy to condemn the hypocrites who get caught, but we all know that we think things and do things in secret that would condemn us if people knew. While we can't ignore these peoples' guilt, we can choose the higher road of praying for them, forgiving them, and recognizing our own human duality.

Email John Prin your thoughts.

You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my books, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. and the sequel, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions.