We also have something to say about the Coldplay kiss cam

It’s a story that many people can’t stop talking about, even while they want to stop talking about it.

Just in case there is some way you don't already know what happened: In a viral video, a married CEO was caught in a romantic embrace with his H.R. director when a “kiss cam” showed the two on a Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in the New England Patriots’ football stadium. The two looked horrified as they self-consciously escaped the camera (call it “self-conscious uncoupling”), and the band leader speculated that they were having an affair or were “very shy.”

A video of the two was viewed 50 million times within hours, and the two people were “named and shamed” in comments sections first, and in national news organizations next.

There are so many angles to this story it has been hard for commentators to resist. But the Bible has been speaking on this issue for millennia, and has insight we shouldn't miss.

First, the video shows what adultery actually is, in reality. Just ask David and Bathsheba.

The image of two people caught in an illicit embrace then withdrawing in shame as millions watch is like a visual parable of the sin of adultery.

Adultery is always a public sin, and never a merely private one, because marriage is public, not private. For a marriage to be valid, the state has to be involved; the Church has to publish banns to give the public a chance to weigh in if necessary, and the vows have to be made with witnesses present.

So, even acts of adultery done in secrecy aren’t private at all: They are sins against everyone — just as David’s sin with Bathsheba affected all of Israel when the Prophet Nathan said it would bring war to David.

In fact, the same thing is already happening in this case. The board of directors of the CEO’s company have weighed in, saying they have initiated a formal investigation because, “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability.”

Second, while our God is merciful, the public is not. Just ask the “Woman Caught in Adultery.”

One Catholic meme about the viral video pointed out that while priests have to keep secret what they hear in Confession, TikTok users and Jumbotron operators do not.

News organizations shared pictures not just of the Jumbotron CEO and his paramour, but also began posting Facebook pictures of his family. Even corporate social media accounts are piling on. The damage being done to these people is immense and hard to watch. 

A Biblical example that is relevant here is the Woman Caught in Adultery in the Gospel of John. In the passage, “scribes and Pharisees” rather than social media users, shamed an adulteress — but not the man involved, for some reason. 

Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground — and some say he was writing their sins there, to show how horrified they would be to be exposed publicly. Then, he famously said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”

In this case, he might say, “Let the one without sin be the first to post about these two.” I have at least tried to spare their names.

Scandal and gossip are wrong because it is wrong to delight in the disgrace of another — and because Christian love “does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices at right.”

Third, all the same, the relentlessness of the Internet is a great moral warning.

Sometimes we forget that the eye of God, our judge, is always watching us. But it is increasingly hard to forget that the judgmental eye of the Internet is.

Young people often lose job opportunities because most employers search their names, and stay away from those with a past — and marriages often end in divorce because of social media and Internet pornography. 

Computerized data miners have already created a picture of you that is built by your purchases, posts, what you like and dislike — and even, in some cases, the text of your “private” emails.

Is it fair? No. But it does drive home a moral lesson: The real you is not your good intentions, nor the picture you want the world to see, but the things you have actually done. 

If you are a sober, upright person motivated by love for God and others above all, your credit card and Internet history should show it. And if your past is riddled with big mistakes, take consolation not in them being covered up, but in Jesus' offer of mercy regardless of who knows about them.