Your Skeleton in My Closet

What do Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Harvey Weinstein all have in common?

Besides great hair.

They all have had spectacular falls from grace in the last year. Some within the last week. But behind all the media coverage, intrigue, investigations, and memoirs there is something else that connects them. It isn’t politics or money, though they all have that to spare. The thing that Trump, Clinton, and Weinstein all have in common is they all have skeletons to hide and they weren’t alone in that endeavor.

We all have skeletons. Past actions, thoughts, or inaction that cause remorse, regret, and grief. In some ways, to have skeletons in your closet is to be human, to be broken and sinful enough to commit the deed but ashamed and guilty enough to try to hide it. To be evil in your heart but acknowledge, at least socially, that the deed is so unacceptable that you hide it. That’s their story, mine, and yours too. But it’s not just that they have skeletons in their closets. We expect that of ourselves, our peers and every public figure for that matter. The thing that truly connects the President, the former Secretary of State, and the now disgraced movie producer is that they hid their skeletons in someone else’s closet.

What do I mean? The recent scandals of these three very public individuals did not occur in isolation. They required, at the very least, the passive acceptance of those around them. In many cases, their current troubles required the active collaboration of their “friends” and colleagues. Do we really think the Clinton foundation mismanagement, the Trump campaign Russia collusion, and Weinstein’s sexual assault all occurred with only the man or woman at the top aware? Surely there were bookkeepers, administrative aides, and celebrity security details and handlers who were in the know. After yet another private visit with yet another beautiful woman in yet another private hotel room, surely someone in Weinstein’s world connected the dots. Same with Trump. Same with Hillary. Their very public misdeeds required very private, but real consent from those in the know. Accomplices to rape, assault, and electioneering. Hiding someone else’s skeleton in their own closet.

That’s what unites these three individuals this week. Not their money, celebrity, or power; they are united by their silent armies who quietly made their scandals either possible in the first place or far more drastic in others. And in those moments those in the know became responsible, in part, for the unethical, immoral behavior around them.

It’s an age old question that Cain first posed to God, somewhat sarcastically, “am I my brother’s keeper?” While a barbed quip then, it’s an appropriate question to ask ourselves today. Am I really responsible for the people around me? For their rights and wrongs? For their behavior? In our highly individualistic society we simply say “you gotta do you,” as if that absolves us of moral responsibility and association with other’s bad decisions. But Scripture would disagree. The truth is, you are your brother’s keeper. And your friend’s and your family’s. To some extent, like it or not, God expects you to speak truth to me in my darker, more sinful moments, and he expects me to do the same for you.

From Ezekiel’s prophecies that bemoan the lack of true spiritual leaders who lovingly call out the people’s sin (Ez. 34) to the New Testament’s frequent commands to spur each other on to do good (Heb. 10:24-25) to the call for believers to confront each other over sin (1 Corinthians 5, 1 John 5:16-18, Jude 23), God expects friends to well, act like friends. At the end of the day, you and I are responsible for each other. To go beyond mere social media friendships. To notice things that are off and when necessary, step in to have a hard conversation to save a friend from even greater sin and pain.

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And the end of the day, that is the deeper scandal of the hour. It’s not that these three public figures did something bad. We’ve come to expect that out of celebrities and politicians. The real story is that dozens of people could have stopped each one of these and didn’t. And we're not talking about the victims of President Trump’s or Weinstein’s sexual intrusions – we are talking about the security personnel, accountants, and aides that were around enough to notice weird “coincidences” yet refused to either ask questions to expose the problem or who knew something was wrong, perhaps even immoral and objectively evil, but did nothing. Victims are not responsible, but friends, confidantes, and even staff could be. There is no honor or moral high ground to stand on after the story breaks and you decide to say then, “I always knew something wasn’t quite right.”