I have a friend that recently went through a job application process with a law enforcement agency. Besides a lengthy questionnaire about minute details of personal history and numerous references, there was a polygraph test full of skepticism and intimidation. One would have to be forgiven in thinking the agency was looking for humans who were raised in a vacuum with its collateral of untried virtue. I couldn’t help but wonder if Jesus could work there. (Jesus, it will be remembered, got into trouble with the authorities for breaking religious code.) The law enforcement agency seemed to be looking only for sins of commission (Have you broken any law or code?) and totally ignored sins of the heart—sins of omission when selfishness and prudishness destroy a more generous human spirit. Give me the generous soul who has a spotted record any day over the parsimonious prude without a blemish. I would be wary of the end result of piety profiling. The agency might get what it deserves—piety without a person inside.
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