Corrupt and Hypocritical Religious Leaders

1. I believe in "X". .
2. Belief in "X" is irrational because [...], and hence I don't believe in "X".

An exquisitely erotic panel. In ancient India the caste system with its ideas of birth and rebirth and practices of obligatory unpaid services (vishti and balutem) for the construction of temples, palaces, forts, etc., along with institutions of Dana made physical slavery unnecessary - mental slavery through blind belief was sufficient for the diversion of the social surplus from the class of Vaishya-shudra producers to that of the non-producing categories.

So who or what runs your world? And do you agree with this survey, should religious leaders be given more power? Do you think they should be trusted more than elected politicians? Or should intellectuals have more of a say in the running of your country?

Corrupt and hypocritical religious leaders
Religious leaders preach one thing and do another but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater
No wonder people are getting fed up with religion when things like this happen. Just last week one of the leading Christian Evangelical pastors, who was the leader of a 14,000 member church in Colorado Springs and a powerful adversary of gay unions, admitted to having a homosexual relationship with a gay escort. This is not the first nor will it be the last abomination caused by religious leaders who preach one thing and themselves do another. The list of religious leaders, even within the Jewish community, who have been embarrassed in similar ways is too long to cite here.
Many secular Jews, especially those living in Israel, maintain that the deceit and double standards that they see within the rabbinate and religious organizations have turned them off religion. Organized religion has become a dirty word in the eyes of many because of the corruption and hypocrisy that it often breeds. Indeed, through my teenage years, I myself put religious leaders on pedestals, only to be forced to take them off again later. Of all the religious leaders I met, from all sectors of Jewish religious life, I could not find one person who truly belonged on a pedestal as an example of perfection.
This experience taught me that no one deserves unconditional reverence. In the final analysis, humans are humans and as such are prone to make mistakes. Even religious leaders are subject to desires, lusts and temptations. Although we expect our spiritual leaders to set an example of morality and ethics, and many of them try to do just that, they are not infallible. The problem, however, lies both with some religious leaders and their followers. Some religious leaders like to portray themselves as holy and perfect. They demand reverence and get offended when they are not treated with the respect they perceive as being due to a person of their stature.
This egotism in turn plays into the natural human need of reliance and trust in others. Most of us know the limit of our own knowledge and abilities and therefore find it comforting to be able to put our faith in a person whom we feel we can trust and believe in as scholarly, holy and perfect.
One of the beauties of Judaism and the Hebrew Bible is that all the main characters are portrayed in a uniquely human fashion, warts and all. Even biblical Moses was not allowed to enter the Land of Israel because he hit the rock instead of speaking to it. Judaism is extremely realistic about its religious leaders – it recognizes that as humans they are bound to fail at least some of the time. Unlike Christianity, Judaism does not see its religious leaders as divine and therefore infallible.
Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater
In Judaism religious leaders have but one role – to teach Torah and to render Halachic (Jewish law) decisions. Yes, we can look up to them hoping that the Torah they have learnt has made them better people, but we must never expect absolute perfection from them, nor should religious leaders portray themselves as such.

When we witness religious leaders misbehaving, inevitably it will reflect negatively on the religion as a whole and they must therefore be held accountable for unacceptable behavior. However, we must be more sophisticated as well and realize that, although humans may fail to live up to their teachings, this does not detract from the truth of the teachings themselves.

Although we must constantly strive for higher standards, corruption, sin and hypocrisy are unfortunate facts of life and to give up on religion because of hypocritical and corrupt religious leaders is to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Ultimately we are all autonomous human beings with choices of our own and both positive and negative aspects to our character. As one of the great Chassidic masters once said, “One who sees only the negative traits of others will learn only from them and end up completely negative. One who notices the positive in others will be able to learn from that and incorporate it into their own life and therefore become a better person.” We can choose to see only the negativity in our religious leaders or we can learn from the abundance of positive attributes that they have. If we do the latter we are much more likely to become better people ourselves.