Hard to Say No to Evangelical Scandals

 We’ve had in WORLD over the past few months a run of investigative stories involving evangelicals caught in sexual sin or fiscal controversy. We don’t enjoy such stories, and they certainly take much more time than the average story to write and edit, because we have to triple-check everything—but when people send us information and plead with us to expose nationally significant corruption, it’s hard to say no.

Some readers value these kinds of stories and some despise them, but almost all have questions about leaders caught with pants down or hands in the pockets of others. Tullian Tchividjian on The Gospel Coalition website last Friday discussed such situations and emphasized “an all important distinction that we often confuse: no vertical condemnation does not equal no horizontal consequences,” and “horizontal consequences do not equal vertical condemnation.”