Father Leo Booth, and the Power of No Condemnation in Christ

I have been meditating on the story of Father Leo Booth for some time over the past few weeks.

This man is a liberal-leaning deacon, pastor, whatever when he was serving at Oxford University. He acknowledged that he struggled with alcohol addiction in terrible ways.

He would wake up in the morning completely soiled.

He went to work drunk, too. All the time that he spent trying to cover up his perversion, he was struggling, trying to keep up appearances.

Why? Because the shame that would overcome him if anyone discovered that this prim and proper deacon.

Then one day, driving drunk, Father Booth got into a car accident.

His car was totaled, Father Booth sat on the curb overwhelmed with the accident.

Father Leo Booth

Then he overhead the students walking back behind him. And he heard them talking about him:

"Oh, there's Father Leo again. He got drunk."

"Father Booth got into a car accident? No surprise there!"

And so on.

The same people who were talking about him, were the same students and staffers he had worked with all that time.

They knew that he had a drinking problem, but they did not shun him. In effect, they didn't care.

Now, Booth reports that when he realized that he wasn't fooling anyone anymore, he sought help.

But I add another layer to this revelation.

For the longest time. Booth was hiding his drinking problem because he was ashamed, he feared the condemnation that would fall on him when people found out that he was a drunk.

But then he realized that they did not care.

The condemnation was broken off in his life, and he was set free.

That's the Biblical principle, the truth that sets us free (John 8:32):

"There is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus."

When we understand that there is no condemnation at all in Christ, when we understand that we will never be condemned for failure, for sin, that we have been fully forgiven, granted the gift of righteousness:

"Be it known unto you therefore, men andbrethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Act 13: 38-39)