By lex, on May 9th, 2011
The US Navy’s elite SEAL teams have been much in the spotlight of late, with overjoyed media outlets eager to print something, anything positive gushing over their professionalism and the arduousness of their training. Unfortunately for some folks, that spotlight has some spillover:
Last week, The Patriot-News newspaper, based in Harrisburg, reached out to former SEALs living in midstate Pennsylvania, hoping for some local perspective on the U.S. commando operation that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Rev. Jim Moats, of Newville, obliged, and was featured in a story that ran in Saturday’s edition. But it turns out Moats was never a SEAL, and the guilt-ridden pastor went to the paper’s office on Sunday to fess up.
“I never was in a class, I never served as an actual SEAL. It was my dream,” Moats, 59, who did serve in the Navy from 1970 to 1974, told the paper. “I don’t even know if I would have met the qualifications. I never knew what the qualifications were.”
I guess on an intellectual level I understand why some people feel as though they haven’t accomplished enough in life, and that they should therefore borrow honors that they haven’t earned. For the life of me though, I just don’t see how they think they will get away with it.
It can’t be easy to live a lie, never knowing when you’ll be found out: As the pastor very well knows, the wicked flee where no man pursueth. And the shame of having been discovered in a lie – as eventually, all who borrow honors will – must far and enduringly exceed whatever transitory psychological benefits are accrued.
The truth about salvation is that there is salvation in the truth.
