John McCain had affairs during his first marriage and left his wife (who had been injured in a car accident) for a beauty queen. Newt Gingrich had an affair with a Congressional staffer while leading the impeachment of Bill Clinton – who had an affair with an intern – and left one of his wives (he's been divorced a few times now) while she was recovering from cancer. And let's not forget the divorced Ronald Reagan.

So now we can add John Edwards to the list of the fallen. I admired Edward's commitment to fighting poverty, to his call for us to become "One America" again, and his seeming devotion to his wife and family. Like most people who've admired the senator, I feel let down. He risked so much by running for president while having an affair. What if he had won the nomination and the affair then became public? America – not just the Democratic Party – would have been injured by the fallout. Edwards says that during the course of his career he "started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic." Add reckless and hypocritical to that list. He was clearly never qualified to serve as the President of the United States.

That doesn't mean that John Edwards doesn't have something to offer the nation. People sin (if you want to use a theological term for failure). All of us. We sin in highly personal ways (affairs, lying, stealing) and we sin in corporate / societal ways (polluting the environment, waging immoral wars).

Each Sunday at my church (and at many others, of course) we – pastor and parishioners - take time during worship to confess our sins before God and to ask for God's forgiveness.

What matters at least as much as the sin is how we seek to redeem ourselves. How Senator Edwards redeems himself in the eyes of his family is his business. But I hope that he finds a way to address those "egocentric and narcissistic" parts of himself in a public sense as well so that his talents might one day benefit the common good once again. Remembering that we are all sinners ought to instill in us the ability to offer forgiveness when it is asked for. God's unconditional love for us shows us the path.