Liar, Liar Robes on Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" As the economy continues its gyrations on the backside of the housing bust, a\u00a0company called Digital Risk works to prevent another toxic mortgage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/06\/liar-liar-robes-on-fire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Liar, Liar Robes on Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" As the economy continues its gyrations on the backside of the housing bust, a\u00a0company called Digital Risk works to prevent another toxic mortgage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/06\/liar-liar-robes-on-fire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" 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{"id":369,"date":"2012-06-12T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T09:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/?p=369"},"modified":"2012-06-14T08:58:13","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T12:58:13","slug":"liar-liar-robes-on-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/cultivare\/2012\/06\/liar-liar-robes-on-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Liar, Liar Robes on Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>As the economy continues its gyrations on the backside of the housing bust, a\u00a0company called Digital Risk <\/a>works to prevent another toxic mortgage collapse. As The Atlantic<\/a> magazine reports this month, Digital Risk does its preventative work by treating the mortgage collapse like a crime scene, \u201creconstructing circumstances that led to so many Americans to buy houses they couldn\u2019t afford,\u201d and then making sure such scenarios aren\u2019t repeated.<\/p>\n

Digital Risk\u2019s objective is to give lenders \u201cactionable intelligence\u201d to help ascertain quality, identify risk, ensure compliance and mitigate fraud. Among the riskiest and most fraudulent borrowers that financial institutions should avoid? Pastors. According to the evidence, shepherds of flocks onto the paths of truth have no scruples when it comes to fleecing mortgage lenders, doctoring bank statements, buying houses they couldn\u2019t pay for, and then filing for bankruptcy. The good news is that while ministers may fail to practice what they (hopefully) preach, their congregations don\u2019t suffer the same hypocrisy. As one Digital Risk investigator put it, \u00a0\u201cThe nice thing about pastors is that their church shares information when asked. Pastors are always an easy [fraud] claim.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

If I was to venture a reason why ministers cheat like this, I would guess it has something to do with that sinister sense of entitlement that can seep into a pastor\u2019s soul once you\u2019ve been pastoring for a while. You get into the church business having felt called to it, desiring to serve the Lord rather than make a lot of money since you can\u2019t serve God and mammon together (so said Jesus). But because serving the Lord can be too heavy a cross to bear\u2013what with cantankerous church meetings, ungrateful parishioners, a sermon a week, high expectations and low budgets\u2013it doesn\u2019t take much for a high calling to sour into a bitter feeling of injustice. You convince yourself that somebody owes you for your having been such a good Christian. Cheating is just a way of getting what\u2019s rightfully yours. After all, Jesus also said that the last should go first.<\/p>\n

Then again, according to Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Saplosky, cheating may reflect a neurological shortage of grace. A recent study<\/a> sought to measure cheating and lying using MRIs on subjects given the chance to cheat on a simple coin toss report. Researchers found that when the opportunity to cheat arose, activity in the part of the brain responsible for moral control lit up like a battlefield for the cheaters. It was evidence of epic spiritual warfare\u2013do it\/don\u2019t\/yes\/no\u2013that the liars inevitably lost. Truth-tellers, on the other hand, experienced no conflict. They calmly did the right thing even when no one was watching. Saplosky asks: \u201cDoes this require a person working hard to refrain from doing the wrong thing? Or is it an act of grace, effortless because temptation isn\u2019t tempting? In the study\u2019s paradigm, it was grace all the way\u2013among the unequivocally honest, there was no increase in [brain] activity when the chance to cheat arose\u2026 There are those who glide through minefields of enticement, doing the difficult, rare, brave, correct thing as naturally as breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly, we ministers need grace as much as anybody. If not more.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"