Reflections on the Duke Lacrosse Scandal

Living in Chapel Hill, NC it has been very interesting to hear about all of the furor and debate surrounding the Duke Lacrosse Scandal. For any of you who are not from the area and have missed the story, check out this article which gives a brief summary of everything that has been happening. In a nutshell, the Duke University Men's Lacrosse Team threw a party, paid some strippers to come to it and one of the strippers claims that she was raped in a bathroom. 

I don't know what happened to this woman, it seems as if she has little motivation to make up these allegations, but the courts will decide on any wrong doing that might have taken place. What has really made me think, however, is the responsibility that Duke had for preventing this incident from ever happening. 

There has been a culture of privilege and looking the other that has been created around this team. There had been numerous signs that there was excessive partying and out of control behavior with this group. These charges have brought light to a bevy of earlier charges for publicdrunkenness, public urination and altercations that already existed. This incident was the inevitable result of a group of you men who live with a sense of indestructibility. I can remember being 20, athletically gifted (although certainly not to any extent like these guys), intelligent and carrying an arrogance that said I could do anything. It is one of the things that makes great athletes great, this sense of arrogance. But when the coach and the university failed to address this culture of excess and allowed it to continueunabeited , these charges were inevitable. It is every institution's responsibility to be aware of and to control the behavior of those who are part of their institution. 

This brings us back to the church. The church, even more so than a university, has the responsibility to be aware of the behavior of their people, and to hold them accountable for that behavior. This has to be one of the hardest tasks of the church. It is also one of the least desirable. When someone signs on at a church, when they join and become part of that community, they pledge to honor Christ with their life and uphold the mission of that church. Unquestionably each one of us in the church, at times, fails to uphold the call to holiness, Christ centered love for the world, and service of God and the world. So how should we, as the Church, work to hold one another accountable to this mission? How do we prevent a culture where sin is not only tolerated but ignored along with its inevitable consequences for the individuals and the church involved?

This accountability has to start with authenticity and awareness. Too many of us come to church, worship, and leave. We don't try and connect with others or expose people to the realities of our lives. We put on a our best clothes and best behavior and then go before God and try to appear holy. We have to start by being real with one another. This requires a lot of time together, outside of church, in the real world. It also requires the courage to be honest about our struggles and failures as well as our successes. This must be modeled by leaders who live in accountability. It is hard for a leader to be completely vulnerable with the people they lead, but they can't be fake either. To be an effective community leader you need people around you who you can be completely honest with and share your struggles with.

Accountability in the church must also entail a clear understanding of the Gospel and what it means to be a disciple. In our politically correct and tolerance driven culture, the nature of the Gospel, sin, and holiness are often lost. In our desire to be tolerant of anyone and everything we often overlook accountability for fear of being labeled a bigot, hypocrite, or even worse, intolerant. We have to have the courage to call sin what it is and the love of Christ so we are still connected and unified as we do so. My greatest fear, as a leader of the church is destroying the name of Christ because of my own sin, whether it was my sin or the sin of my community that did so. We mustacknowledge that when we are part of a a community, the sins of the community are our sins. When we are part of a system, the sins of the system are our own. And so we must never stand pat and let communal or systemic sin ruin the name of Christ.