One of the news stories that has not gone away has been the personal email controversy surrounding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It appears that during her tenure a private email server was maintained in her home for her official correspondence, rather than using the government provided, secure servers. Secretary Clinton has stated the emails she sent and received over this personal server did not contain any sensitive or secret material, although the State Department has gone back and identified more than 1,600 emails as classified, with many being either “Secret” or “Top Secret.” This week, NBC News has released a story asserting Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice also used private email addresses through which sensitive materials passed (though Secretary Rice has stated she did not use email at all during her time at State, with the emails in question being sent by assistants). Both previous Secretaries have also denied any classified material being passed through these private accounts. However, the law is clear on the handling of such material, and when it comes to classified information, it would seem the wisest course of action is to use the secure servers provided by the State Department for this purpose so that one might be well within the boundaries of the law.
At this point, the Clinton campaign seems to be making an argument that has long been used since the dawn of history: “But they did it too!” (the tu quoque fallacy). Parents, how many times have you heard this defense for the actions undertaken by one of your children? How many of us have encountered this defense from coworkers? Each one of us has a sinful proclivity to deflect the responsibility for our own actions. By employing such a defense, however, we are tacitly acknowledging not only our guilt, but our understanding of the wrongness of our actions as well. We knew what we were doing was against God’s standards, but we had witnessed so many others involved in it, maybe even Christians we admired. Standing before God, we immediately revert to our forebears Adam and Eve, who took turns shifting the blame from themselves to someone else despite their direct knowledge from God of what was prohibited.
This penchant to avoid responsibility comes from deep within our flesh, where the sin of rebellion resides. We resent the notion that anyone has authority over us, especially to tell us what is right and wrong. Our sin nature has marred our reason to the point that we begin to view God’s standards of righteousness as restrictive and repressive, rather than liberating. Jesus tells us to take on His yoke, because it is easy and in Him we will find rest (Matt. 11:29). The yoke of grace is so much lighter than the yoke of sin, yet our sin-damaged reason drives us to try to take up that heavy yoke again and again. When we witness brothers and sisters also struggling under that weight, may our response not be to rush to put it on ourselves by exclaiming, “They’re doing it too,” but instead may it be one of compassion and desire to see them freed from the bondage of sin that drags us down (Hebrews 12:1). Just something to think about…
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