Today more than ever moral leadership is captured within the tantalizing grip of political seduction. Political crises are not new. Indeed, it seems a perpetual truism that persons of political power and influence have always engaged in actions speaking less of moral character and more of political expediency, even leaders as diverse as Louis XIV, Henry VIII, or Julius Caesar. Bearing all this in mind, let us examine what the Bible has to say about political scandal or crisis, public or private revelation of the scandal, the eventual political fallout, and the hard lessons to be learned. One hallmark of the Bible is that it paints its heroes with brutally honest strokes.
Nothing is held back.
In a style that is most often painfully abrupt, it neither minces words nor waxes eloquent about its protagonists, but presents them with all the faults and foibles inherent in the human condition. Take, for example, the Biblical character David, the archetypal king and Messianic prototype. Scripture makes no apology for depicting not only his triumphs but also his dark side. To be sure, the Biblical David was a fundamentally flawed, occasionally pathetic individual who vacillated between lust, megalomania, mental instability, and eventually personal misery. David is a case study in the socio-religious and political consequences of serious weakness of character and faulty judgment, as well as an example of a truly repentant leader, who suffered through the severe personal, social, and political problems resulting from his commission of sin.