New faces, old problems

The world can breathe a sigh of relief: the new Doctor Who has been revealed. And just in case we’re fearful in the interim, David Tennant, the previous Doctor Who, has recovered from his bad back and can return to playing Hamlet. Sadly, our heroes are fallible.

More significantly, Barack Obama is again feeling the chilly winds of politics, two weeks before his inauguration as US President. Bill Richardson, who had been nominated as Commerce Secretary, has stood down over an investigation into a business deal when he was Governor of New Mexico. Criticising our leaders seems to be much easier than supporting them. And like our screen heroes, they too are fallible.

Perhaps our public figures could learn from the example of John the Baptist, who pointed out his own fallibility before anyone else could draw attention to it (see John 1:27). But what would Jesus have made of the bad economic news that has emerged recently? Some of it is misfortune. Some of it the predictable consequence of greed (and many of us have been part of that). And some of it, such as the Bernard Madoff investment scandal, seems to have been outright fraud compounded by lax regulation.

Yet it’s too easy for Christians to criticise everyone else and forget that the Church is not exempt from financial scandal. What kind of a warning is Jesus’ clearing of the temple?

Emlyn Williams