In the Bible, Saul of Tarsus was one bad mamma jamma. He delighted in jailing Jesus’ followers and coercing them to blaspheme his name. As the story goes, Saul was traveling from Jerusalem to Damascus when a bolt of light hit him and he heard a voice: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Long story short: Saul became Paul and morphed into one of Jesus’ biggest supporters, willing to suffer persecution and incarceration to promote Christ to a wayward world.
Indicted former politician Lynette Boggs seems to be fashioning a Paul-like metamorphosis. Boggs faces 18 to 30 years if convicted of two felony counts of perjury and filing false documents related to her time on the County Commission.
Earlier this year, she co-founded the nonprofit FaithWorks USA “to expand the works of Jesus Christ in Las Vegas” and faith-based multimedia company 2:18 Entertainment. She’s trekked to Africa to preach. Her company recently co-sponsored a spiritual conference for women.
Never shy to invoke religion, Boggs once told a City Council critic, “I send you right back into the fire in the name of Jesus Christ.” Some in the media wonder whether this total religious submersion is genuine, or if she’s just the latest in a long line (from disgraced pastor Jim Bakker to dog-fighting financier Michael Vick) who’ve invoked faith when the buzzards circle.
Another question looms even larger: Why do people still follow disgraced religious leaders?
Asked to comment on Boggs’ legal problems, several FaithWorks officials declined comment.
It’s common: Colorado Springs pastor Ted Haggard received offers of financial help from members of New Life Church after he was ousted for buying meth and allegedly soliciting a male escort. E-mails intercepted by Utah authorities show members of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints support their jailed leader Warren Jeffs, referring to him as “beloved prophet” and their “angel in Christ.” Jeffs was found guilty on two counts of being an accomplice to raping a teenage girl. Back in Vegas, former Second Baptist Church pastor Willie Davis, who got probation for his role in misappropriating nearly half a million dollars in federal grant monies, opened a new church this month.
Are religious people simply more forgiving? Part of the answer involves denomination, says UNLV professor Dan Stout, co-editor the Journal of Media and Religion, a peer-reviewed tome exploring interplays between faith and mass communication.
“Religion is really about values, and there are competing values associated with forgiveness and with just punishments,” Stout says. “Your conservative or evangelical Protestants—Pentecostals and Southern Baptists—have a more literal interpretation of biblical punishments, while mainline Protestants—your Methodists and Presbyterians—have a broader interpretation of forgiveness and punishment.”
Aren’t other, irreligious forces at work, too? Members of my family followed the late pastor A.J. Thompson, founder of Victory Missionary Baptist Church, to three congregations. Their allegiance to him trumped any alleged misbehavior.
The media focuses on the religious leader’s sins, Stout says, but congregations tend to look at the leader’s entire life, the good works he or she has done.
For Boggs—as for Davis and Jeffs and Haggard—that’s a bit of a miracle.