Danielle Kingstrom
Many people would insist that infidelity harms more than just the couple involved. And to a certain degree, I would agree. If there are children involved, the turmoil can distort how they see relationships. However, from my own experience, it doesn’t have to impact children negatively. It all depends on how it is received. From there, unfaithfulness affects the couple and the couple alone. Any circumference of the impact that extends past the couple and children involved is simply irrelevant.
It’s irrelevant because what takes place in a relationship between two people is between those two people. But often, too often, in fact, onlookers, bystanders, and those not included in the inner circle find a way to make another person’s affair solely about themselves. I have personally witnessed this type of behavior in my life. I remember when my husband’s stepmother and father needed me to be aware of how my infidelity to my husband affected them. It’s all they could consume themselves with for the longest time. They needed me to know that since I betrayed my husband, they could no longer trust me and that I had to regain their trust. They needed me to know that they too, felt like I broke my vows.
Absurd isn’t it? Well, it was for me. I remember having this tunneling sensation as though a camera was panning out as my jaw was dropping to the floor. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that what happened between me and another man had anything to do with them! And it wasn’t just them, it was so many different people that we were connected to by family ties—people who I rarely had any interactions with on an intimate level, suddenly all needed me to be aware of all the feelings. People who had no intimate knowledge of the preceding nine months that led to that evening of “betrayal.” The same people who pretended I didn’t exist during holiday gatherings, or upon invitations to family events that I would host. It was all absurd that not one of these people had ever cared about my feelings in the whole time I had known them, but demanded I know theirs in an instant of circulating gossip and drama.
Everybody wants to be apart of the trauma that occurs so long as they can keep their distance from the debris of it while still opining on the matter.
When an infidelity scandal starts circulating, it’s like a train wreck that you cannot look away from. You need to know all about it, who the victim is, who the traitor is, and what we are going to do about it. Or at least that’s the mindset behind the new revelation, whether that transpires or not is also irrelevant. But somehow, we need to be apart of the story, so if that means we share bits of what we have heard, we feel included and somehow responsible for continuing to engage the business of others. It’s how we justify being nosy gossips. It’s how we inject another opinion that we are so sure someone else just needs to hear. It’s how we make ourselves relevant in the story and experience of another.
The latest internet scandal involves Hillsong and Carl Lentz. He’s a superstar megachurch pastor who counseled Justin Bieber and worked with Miley Cyrus. Hillsong Founder Brian Houston said, “following ongoing discussions in relation to leadership issues and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of moral failures”, Lentz was subsequently fired.
Lentz clarified in an Insta Gram post that this “moral failing” was infidelity in his marriage. He was “unfaithful to Laura” and it was his “failure alone” that he would “take responsibility” for.
Before Lentz publicly addressed this scandal, all that was revealed was that there was a “breach of trust” and “moral failings. Clearly, that’s enough for curiosity and imagination to run wild and begin the scandal speculation. I saw allegations of pedophilia, rape, sexual assault, chronic sexual abuse, and manipulation, to assumptions that he was gay and preying on young boys.
In an instant, this one person who held the attention and admiration of hundreds of thousands of people was diminished to the crassest and perverse character one could concoct. At merely the hint of scandal and impropriety, an adoring audience turns into a mob of villains depicting you as a monster and a predator. Isn’t that crazy? It’s absolutely insane how quickly people can turn and try to cancel someone without even a handful of substantive information.
Yet it happens day in and day out. I have been a participant and observer of this type of immediate erasure of worthiness more times than I care to count. And it’s so easy to do now more than ever. We can simply inject our opinions into any conversation in a way that we invalidate someone that we have absolutely no insight into, and we feel morally elevated about doing it. We love pointing out the moral failings of others, but how often do we expose our own? Do you think you don’t have any? Oh, my love, you do! We all do. If one can fail, all can fail. That’s kind of how it works.
Even after the clarification on behalf of Lentz, and to the chagrin of those that were hoping it was something awful and horrendous so they could continue their outrage so self-righteously, a double-standard exists. It’s different for Lentz because he’s a pastor. He’s a leader. He needs to set a standard of virtue and integrity.
He needs to be perfect and show us what perfect is. He has to be good. If he’s not, he’s not good enough to be a leader or pastor or hold influence. Isn’t that what we expect for those we give power to? Politicians, celebrities, pastors, commentators, social media influencers, singers, actors, leaders—they must uphold a higher standard of humanity if they are to prove they are a success.
Failure isn’t a sign of success.
But it is isn’t it?
If the system itself is perpetuating the narrative and expectation of perfection, of moral aptitude (read: moral hierarchy, I-am-better-than-you-and-more-righteous-than-you mindset), of a life experience that exists without struggle, burden, doubt, or fuck-ups, shouldn’t we want to tear that system down? Isn’t that what we do when we transform our beliefs, deconstruct our religion, and welcome in an awakening? Don’t we want to see a real-life tragedy play out and elevated and transcended? Isn’t that what the mystics are trying to inform us about? Suffering is an opportunity. Not to relish in someone else’s downfall, but to understand that perfection isn’t what we think it is.
To be perfect doesn’t mean to never fail or fall off the path. To be perfect means to be whole, to be integrated, and to be evolving. A flower is perfect, from seed to blossom, because it is always growing into itself, despite whatever elemental consequences befall her. (Yeah, but we are not plants, you say.)
A toddler isn’t a moral failure because she falls while she is learning to walk. A man isn’t a moral failure because he loves another in a way that he’s promised to only love one. We are all still learning how to walk, live, and love, and sometimes, we fall down. If you don’t believe God is right there in the fall, you haven’t deconstructed enough.
I want to see a person vulnerably share a piece of their story like Carl Lentz did. But I want to see the healing. Why doesn’t the Church ever want to share glimpses of what healing looks like? Don’t we need examples of healing outside of Scripture? A lived-experience to let others know they aren’t alone in their struggles to relate to someone they promised their lives to?
What would the Church look like if it actually acted like Jesus? What would the Church look like if grace was the overarching Gospel instead of public relations and member counts? What if Hillsong didn’t sever ties with Pastor Lentz and instead, asked to be apart of his journey and asked him to share what he and his wife are learning as they learn to relate again?
Christian couples suffer from infidelity at alarming rates. But most couples don’t disclose that information because the Church has always condemned forgiveness of infidelity. Isn’t that something?! Instead of seeing how grace was the constant hallmark of love, the Church, and the parishioners assumed the role of judge and jury to all who fail to uphold their vows regarding the marriage bed. Never mind all the other vows couples break on a daily basis when we lose our temper, reject intimacy, ignore texts, and the other shit that we do to intentionally spite our partners when we are feeling all the feels. I guess grace ends at fucking another person? Does grace end with sex?
My aim is not to condone infidelity or somehow justify ease about it simply because I have grown and healed from it. My vows weren’t actually broken. I said for better or worse. He said for better or worse. We committed to one another no matter what happens. Marriage isn’t for the whimsical. It’s a serious connection. It’s why we don’t exchange vows in friendships. We aren’t ready for that level of commitment with anybody. And we prefer to at least reap some reward from such a strong commitment, which is why sex is apart of that deal.
You know this, I know this, the Church knows this. Yet we refuse to talk about sex. That’s why everything that relates to sex becomes a scandal. We silence and shame sex so much that there’s almost no logical way we can affirm what we affirm and then extend grace and forgiveness for the betrayal of what we affirm. If we continue to rationalize this irrational way of thinking, sexuality can never be fully integrated into our spirituality, and what an unfortunate tale to tell.
Our feelings have a great impact on how the Church handles this, of course. When we take to social media to opine our judgments of experiences that we aren’t involved in, to make ourselves feel included in the drama, we are only solidifying the stance of the Church and its continuance with shaming and sweeping it under the rug. We are saying we don’t want this represented in our leadership (of any kind) because of the way it makes us feel. Isn’t that kind of silly?
It’s this kind of absurdity that continues to recycle itself in many aspects of our lives. Just as my in-laws had to let me know how my infidelity impacted them, we have to let the world know how someone else’s trauma has impacted us. My infidelity didn’t impact them. All it did was bring to surface things they hadn’t dealt with from their previous relationships. And that’s all that is happening with us when we react to scandals like this. It’s picking at something inside that we just haven’t dealt with yet. It feels like a betrayal, but it’s not. That pastor didn’t betray anyone of us. Yet we feel betrayed. Is it because we feel excluded? Is it because of the stories of others that resonate with our feelings of exclusion ping at something that impacts our own relationships? You bet that’s possible! This is why we have to put our opinions out there whenever anything “bad” or “immoral” comes across our view. We need to state, unequivocally, that we condemn the bad things so that we feel relevant.
But when was it mandated that we condemn anyone? “For now there is no condemnation in Christ.” Do we ignore that text only to appeal to another piece of text that justifies the condemnation?
It’s moments that involve religious leaders entangled in bouts of infidelity, or cuckoldry, or polyamory, or bisexuality that the Church needs to walk towards with grace instead of shaming it and swiping it away and out of the building. Jesus invited the “unclean” woman to sit before him despite the insistence that such behavior was considerably a “moral failure” by today’s standards. If the Church wishes to remain relevant, inviting the “unclean” to enter seems like the most convincing way to prove progress. Condemnation of human missteps seems a bit opposed to the love, mercy, and grace that Jesus preached. When will the Church walk its talk and act like Jesus?
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