Tuesday 3 December 2013
Does John Banks Only Do Good?
I read this rather unusual statement by John Banks:
"I've spent a lifetime of doing good, a lifetime of trying to balance my family ledger, a lifetime of making a difference for people, and a lifetime of contributing to this country. I only do good. I don't do bad things."Reporters like to take quotes out of context so maybe Mr Banks didn't really mean to say this, but for the sake of argument I'll assume it's accurate.
What strikes me about this statement is that in the past John Banks has portrayed himself as a Christian, and I don't think a Christian can make that statement or anything like it. A bedrock truth of Christianity is that we are all sinners, and bad ones. We've all done bad things and we all keep doing bad things. We generally don't realize it, because we're good at self-justification and our standards are lower than God's, but we are all desperately in need of forgiveness. This holds no matter where we are on our spiritual journey --- "forgive us our sins", as Jesus taught his disciples to pray.
So, for a self-professed Christian to say "I only do good, I don't do bad things" is an egregious error, no matter how it was meant. I hope that any Christian genuinely practicing their faith would try to steer away from saying anything like it under any circumstances, lest they give a false impressions of what Christians believe.
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