Caleb Flynn And The Deadly Sin Of Greed

He looks like what he is: A churchman, specifically, a lay worship pastor. His nondescript home, where two young girls are still sleeping, is a perfectly ordinary place of warmth on a cold February night in Ohio. But the police body-cam footage is a study in contrast. He’s sobbing, panicked. He wears a sweatshirt reading “God-Sized Vision” while telling police a burglar broke into the home, shot his wife in her bed, and escaped.

But this story didn’t hold up. Caleb Flynn—a former American Idol contestant—was convicted September 29 of murdering his wife, after large amounts of evidence demonstrated he was determined to rid himself of her and be with his affair partner, a fellow singer from his church.

Videos from the trial show Flynn sitting stoically while attorneys read text messages between him and his lover, pining for his wife’s death. Minutes before he was sentenced to life without parole, his wife’s family read letters to him from his daughters.

In that moment, it’s hard not to think that Flynn was experiencing a small but real taste of hell: a just judgment on his life as the words of those who once loved him remind him of what he has forever lost.

How does a worship pastor get here?

When Greed Leads to Murder

Some will say the answer is lust. They’re not wrong. No Christian should underestimate the power of illicit fantasy. What we give our imaginations to will demand our actions soon enough. Adultery is devastating. No wonder Solomon asked his son to consider, “Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?” (Prov. 6:27).

But focusing only on lust would be a mistake. Lust is why a covenant was broken, but it might not be why a trigger was pulled. The man wearing the “God-Sized Vision” sweatshirt will spend the rest of his life in prison not only because of lust but also because of greed.

In American society, any dissatisfied spouse can serve divorce papers for almost any reason. There was no legal, political, or logistical reason why Flynn had to stay with his wife over his lover. It’s highly unlikely that divorcing would even have stopped him from having partial custody of his daughters.

So why did Ashley Flynn need to die? Because a divorce would have meant confessing his adultery, not just to his wife but to the whole community. It would have meant stepping away from the Sunday-worship spotlight. It would have meant losing the lucrative career working for his father-in-law.

We can’t look inside Flynn’s heart and know the complexities of his motives. But I suspect Flynn wanted adultery without paying adultery’s price.

Greed Is Subtle

Many of us know how deceptive lust is. But for many evangelicals, greed is a harder snake to catch. For one thing, unlike lust, greed can disguise itself as virtue. A Christian man or woman would be ashamed for fellow church members to see a steamy browsing history, but he or she would probably expect support and affirmation for an all-consuming career ambition.

I suspect Flynn wanted adultery without paying adultery’s price.

Greed can be subtle. It’s easy to hear the word and only imagine Ebenezer Scrooge forbidding Bob Cratchit from warming up the frigid office. But greed isn’t only about money. It’s about holding too tightly to our identity and accomplishments.

When a celebrity pastor commits a disqualifying sin and expresses initial remorse, why can’t he live out the rest of his life in quiet, humble, anonymous repentance? In many cases, it’s greediness for the esteemed identity as a leader and preacher. He cannot imagine himself without the trappings of pastoral ministry, the same way Scrooge couldn’t imagine himself sparing more money for the poor.

Or maybe Flynn (who hasn’t confessed) thought his damage control would minimize the sin. I wonder if Flynn reasoned to himself that by killing his wife, he was sparing her the agony of betrayal and divorce. Perhaps he even thought (perversely) he was being heroic, accepting the stain on his conscience while sparing his wife the hardship of abandonment.

If so, this too was greed: for control. He was unwilling to let his choices incur their natural consequences. Had Flynn simply followed his adultery to its marriage-splitting conclusion, he may have even found grace that would lead him back to repentance. The Prodigal Son should never have left home, but eating with the pigs brought him back. By contrast, Judas never gave himself the opportunity to learn that Peter, too, had betrayed the Lord. Had Judas accepted the shame and disgrace, rather than reject it through suicide, he too might have been asked, “Do you love me?”

Control, like money, is an asset we’re anxious to have, and then once we think we have some, we’re anxious to get more. The German philosopher Hartmut Rosa sees similarity between the way the modern world pursues money and the way it pursues control. When we accept the uncontrollability of the world, however, we find that what makes life threatening is also what makes it meaningful. The same lack of control that scares us also moves, changes, and blesses us.

Greed’s Greatest Deception

Greed’s greatest deception is that the only way to have is to grasp. That’s why we need to remind ourselves all the time of two things: We aren’t in control, and the One who is cares about us much more than he cares about anything else in his well-cared-for world.

Greed’s lies are always exposed. For Flynn, that moment came via his daughters’ words. One of them wrote to her dad,

Mommy was the perfect person. The absolute perfect person. What did she ever do to make you hate her so much?

She loved you and she cared for you. She took care of you. She loved you with all her heart.

She was my best friend. And then you chose to kill the only mother I ever had. I miss her so much. So, so, so much. You have no idea.

His daughter understands that her father didn’t desire happiness too much. He desired it too little. Greed didn’t just deform his heart and poison his actions. It blinded his vision.

Greed’s greatest deception is that the only way to have is to grasp.

But his daughter has refused to give up on him. She concluded her letter, “Remember, there’s still a chance. There is a choice for everything. I hope you will bring Jesus back into your heart.”

Now Caleb Flynn has lost all control, imprisoned for the rest of his life. But he remains trapped by greed, until he can finally repent, confess, and receive God’s grace.