As everyone knows by now, Eliot Spitzer has apparently disgraced his office through his use of spendy hookers. He did this having made a name for himself as the Law, prosecuting sundry others, and showing No Mercy in his various rampages. Having made enemies in any number of directions, it turns out that he is a multi-layered hypocrite. So that is the salacious story, and that is what will be in the headlines for a week or so. Others have made this particular point emphatically, and so there is no point in me dwelling on it.
What I want to point to is the great deficiency this shows in understanding narrative theology. Narratival theology is all the rage these days in some quarters, but understanding of it does not seem to be emerging, however much emergent types want to talk about story arcs. Did Eliot Spitzer never read Flannery O’Connor? Has he not read Tom Wolfe? Did he never read about that prosecutor guy in Bonfire of the Vanities who was always flexing his neck muscles for the ladies? That is narrative theology for those who know how to read it.