Love Triangles, Ashley Madison and the Myth of Education

Education can never fully solve the problems of the heart. Over the past few weeks we’ve heard some unbelievably heartbreaking stories about well-educated men taking their own lives.

First there was the Baptist pastor and seminary professor who took his own life recently because he had been outed in the Ashley Madison hack. John Gibson was a New Orleans pastor and seminary professor. He had the highest educational level possible with his doctorate. But that wasn’t enough to keep him out of a situation that became too big for him.

And then yesterday the news broke of an active shooter on Delta State University. For hours the campus was on lock down, and then the details began to slowly leak out. One professor shot another professor of whom he suspected was involved in a love triangle with his live in partner. Both professors had doctorates.

Two weeks, three doctors teaching at the highest levels, all dead because of sexual sin. If the problems of humanity were simply in the head, then education would be the answer. If the only problems we faced were because of a lack of knowledge, then these three men should have ceased to struggle with sin years ago.

Education can never fully solve the problems of the heart. Sin is an infectious cancer that can corrupt even the most educated minds. We scoff at the poor for their misfortune because it’s almost expected of them, but we recoil at stories of the well-educated making a mess of their lives, because they should have moved past normal human struggles.

The problem has been and always will be the human heart, infected with sin. It cannot be cured by quality of life, education or technology. God and only God has been the cure for the problem of sin in the world. I should know. I’m a doctor.