as i travel thru ThisPilgrimLand

Learning from Herman Cain

I can’t help but say “Poor Herman Cain.”  Honestly, I feel sorry for the guy.  I am sure that when he made his decision to seek the Republican presidential candidate nomination that he had no idea his sins would be pulled out and displayed for the entire world to see.  If this is so, Cain is extremely naive.  In today’s world of American politics, one can rest for sure that skeletons in the closet will be put on display.  Just as I felt sorry for Tiger Woods and Bill Clinton for having to live through such a public humiliation, I feel the same for Herman Cain.

There is another group who have been humiliated by Herman Cain as well.  Those who proclaim Christianity and who publicly and loudly rallied behind Cain and his claims of Christian faith.  These are the people who have chastised Mitt Romney for following a religion that allows polygamy all the while their “faithful” candidate is operating in the same polygamous environment in the bedroom.  These people have been made to look foolish by Cain and his sins and the already battered and bruised identity of the American Christian takes another black eye of hypocrisy. 

Cain who rallied people to his cause by using the “return to a Christian nation” spill has proven to be one who does not practice what he preaches.  Cain’s own personal “Sally Hemmings” could possibly be the closest thing to eighteenth century America that we have seen in this country in some time.  Meanwhile, those who scoff at the idea of America being a Christian nation have now been given more artillery for their argument against this concept. 

Psalm 146:3 tells the reader “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.”  While Cain was no prince and has worked hard for all of the financial success he has had in this life, he is certainly a son of man.  He is a human.  For many Cain represented salvation for the United States.  He talked the talk.  Sadly, it seems that his action stopped at the talk.  This is why the psalmist tells us not to put our faith in human beings.  We are all sinners and no one, no man, can save us from death, despair, problems, and toiling. 

I feel for Herman Cain.  I feel for his family.  Let us pray that he will repent and turn to Christ for true forgiveness and salvation and that the faith he proudly proclaims will become walking and not simply talking.  Let us do the same for ourselves as well.  Then, and only then, will the changes that so many hope to see in the world around them take place.  Christ alone saves, not man.