The big problem with "moral failings."

What we really need to understand about that phrase.

“I didn’t have a moral failing, or fall into an addiction.”

I read those words and sighed. I sighed for me. I sighed for you. And I sighed for everyone who has ever committed a “big sin.”

And I grieved.¹

The words quoted above are from an article I read this week. The author was a pastor explaining why he had resigned from his church and left the ministry. And in order to explain it he wanted to be clear: while there were apparently some things that went wrong, we should rest assured that he did nothing as egregious as cheating on his wife or falling into addiction.

Well, friend, I am an addict. I am the Christian who became an alcoholic, not the other way around, as I like to say. I fell. Hard. I was on part-time church staff during the beginning of my heaviest drinking period.

I was that guy.

And I have some news for you: we are all “that guy.”

And yet, what I’ve realized—and what’s made clear by statements like the one above—is that the Church really struggles with people who have sinn…