We are finding it hard to move on past the mendacity and priggishness of Green leader, Metiria Turei. Here was a public exposure of universal human depravity--an uncloaking of what lurks and festers inside all of us.
The particular events are now well known. But to recap, the Green Leader has admitted lying for over a period of at least five years in order to maintain her state income support benefit which was means tested. In order to get the full entitlement, there were limits on how much "other income" Turei was receiving. In this case she owned or operated successive apartments which she had sub-let to several other flatmates. She lied to the welfare authorities about the income she was receiving from her cohabitants. If she had told the truth, of course, like ordinary folk, her state welfare benefit would have been reduced accordingly.
Now, years later, Turei has cast herself as both a victim and a martyr. She was forced into lying, she says.
The real evil here (according to this Rousseau-like self-made saint) is that the state was not offering her sufficient money to continue the lifestyle to which he had grown accustomed, so she defrauded her fellow citizens and lied. Therefore, the state and its meanness are to blame. All of this to promote the Green's fairy land policy of a huge increases in benefit payments and zero means testing anywhere.
Who is responsible for Turei's mendacity? "This is what being on the benefit did to me - it made me poor and it made me lie," she said. There it is. Right there. Turei confirms the eternal truth of the Bible. Of course she did not know that she was doing so. But the unconscious ease with which she sought to justify her sin and push the blame elsewhere unintentionally underscores the truth of the Scripture.
It is now thousands of years ago that our first parents, the first human beings, disobeyed God and fell into sin. The Scriptures confirm that the first consequence of their rebellion against God was a consciousness of nakedness. The second was fear: they sought to hide themselves from God. The third was to shift the blame for their actions onto someone or something else.
As we hear and read Turei's attempt to escape guilt and justify her actions by shifting the blame away from herself we see that she is as Eve in the Garden. She testifies to the universality of human sin. There has been zero moral evolution. Scratch the surface and underneath nothing has changed--until and unless the Spirit of God makes us newborn.
Read the text and observe the similarity:
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” [Genesis 3: 8--13]An immediate consequence of the Fall was Adam's attempt to blame his wife for his sin; then, fast following, Eve turned to blame the serpent. It was his fault. Note, however, that whilst God indeed holds the serpent accountable, He also finds both Adam and Eve guilty.
In her reflexive blame-shifting, Turei unwittingly confirms the truth of the Scriptures. That is about the only positive thing we can see coming out of her attempted deception. She is indeed like all of us--a descendant of Eve herself. We are both repelled and ashamed by her posturing. Repelled by her bold mendacity and attempt at self-justification. Ashamed, because we know we are just like her.
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