When Stones Break : The Flaws in Clergymen Are Within Us All

Until the news of his scandal hit the front page a few months ago, I could not even identify Jimmy Swaggart or distinguish him clearly among the blur of fundamentalists who clutter the tube. When my channel-switching catches one of these preachers, I am invariably reminded of the time when I was training to be a preacher myself and a friend counseled me to read Sinclair Lewis’ “Elmer Gantry,” the story of a charlatan minister, as a kind of cautionary tale about the dangers ahead of me.

Elmer Gantry pursued his hypocritical ministry in tents, and maybe on the radio, long before the age of “televangelism.” But his name has justly come to epitomize the abuse of trust that has long been a plague in religious life.

How long? Probably since the first shaman back in the Stone Age sensed that he had power over those who followed him and decided, in a moment of greed or lust, that he might as well enjoy his advantage. Certainly the Hebrew Bible is bursting with Elmer Gantrys. The writings of the Prophets especially are full of passionate denunciations of all sorts of religious functionaries eager to play the crowd of believers for personal gain.

In other words, although the name for this phenomenon was coined by Sinclair Lewis only in this century, Elmer Gantrys dot the history of civilization like cherries in a fruit cake. Like some kind of infernal dybbuk , they get reincarnated in every generation and every culture and every century; with remarkable ecumenicity, they infect church, synagogue, mosque, temple, cult, monastery and convent, the religious functionaries of every faith, continent, social class and sex, the men and women who put on their robes of authority not to bring healing and teaching to those whose trust they have gained, but to satisfy the very appetites that they exhort their followers to control.

That certainly seems to have been the case with Jimmy Swaggart. But there is more to his dismal fall than the latest Elmer Gantry finally getting his just deserts. With reflection, we might see that it tells us something very important about religion and life, and perhaps about ourselves.

Consider this perspective, drawn from a remarkable little poem, titled “Pride,” by the Israeli writer Dahlia Ravikovitch (translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch):

Even rocks crack, I tell you,

and not because of age.

For years they lie on their backs

in the heat and the cold ...

Whoever is going to shatter them

hasn’t come yet.

And so the moss flourishes, the seaweed swirls,

the sea pushes through and rolls back,

and it seems they are motionless.

Till a little seal comes to rub against the rocks,

comes and goes away.

And suddenly the stone is split.

I told you, when people break it happens by surprise.

When people break. That’s the theme of Jimmy Swaggart’s life of late. As one commentator, Donald E. Miller, pointed out on this page: “This is the human condition, and clerics are no more immune from moral failure than doctors are spared from heart attacks or influenza.” I cite this not to excuse Swaggart or evoke pity for him. Part of me feels that he deserves all the agony and humiliation dumped on him. But another part senses the universal and deeply human drama at work in this man, a drama that, with different scripts, is played out in the life of every one of us.

There is something unseemly about the scorn heaped upon Swaggart. Yes, he deserved it, but one would have hoped that there might be a little less arrogance in the condemnations of his arrogance, and perhaps not quite so much self-righteousness in the judgment of his self-righteousness. In short, a bit more humility would have been in order.

People break. All people. Often by surprise. The cracks in our being are carefully hidden most of the time, and we ourselves are often insensitive and do not know, or will not confess, that they are there. It seems almost peaceful, so long as we don’t move and our cracks stay hidden. So our pride grows, until one day, without warning or invitation, a little seal rubs against us and we split. We break. By surprise. All of us.

That is what we need to learn from Swaggart. The fact that he secretly committed the very sins he condemned in others suggests that in his ministry he was desperately trying to heal himself and take control of his life. He did this by mounting up into a towering pulpit cloaked in impressive robes that hid from his followers and from himself the painful cracks in his soul. And for a time it worked. He fooled his adoring followers, and himself, until one day a little seal appeared and it was all over.

What’s the lesson here? It’s very simple and very old, and it has to do with the difficulty that every person experiences in finding a way to live decently with all the complex stuff that surges and rages in our souls. Our rabbis saw that long ago when they noted in the Talmud that the greater the rabbi, the greater is his evil inclination. Ultimately we are all cut from the same cloth--leaders and followers, preachers and congregations. The trouble begins with the illusion that those who deal in holiness and spirituality are somehow exempt from the temptations and the pleasures, and the tortures, of the flesh.

At the root, there is no difference between clergy and laity. For all of us the old questions abide, and always will: How can we become real persons? How can we learn to use our talents and our defects in ways that will transcend, but not ignore the frailty of the human condition? How can we live with some authenticity in the here and now, and not choose a vicarious existence, finding in others the virtues or defects we think cannot be found in ourselves? How can we establish durable, caring bonds with other persons who, like us, are fragile and vulnerable, and who, like us, struggle to shape the years that destiny has alloted to us?

That’s what life is all about, for everyone. The best we can do is be aware of the cracks and keep patching them against the day when whoever is going to shatter us arrives at long last.