David took Bathsheba, so why is he still a holy king?

🔥The question: “A man in power took a woman and had her husband killed — does the Bible write it up as a hero's romance?”

🛡️The Church's answer: David is remembered as an important figure in Scripture and in the liturgy, but not because his crime was small or justified. He was a king who received God's promise and a man who was accused of his sin and repented, and yet neither his repentance nor his role in the history of salvation undoes his abuse of power against Bathsheba or the death of Uriah. Scripture does not praise this as romantic love; it records it as a grave sin, denounced publicly by the prophet Nathan with the words “You are the man.” The honorific ‘holy king’ does not mean a hero without sin either, and it must not be used to erase the victim's suffering or the offender's responsibility.

🧐If they press further: “So were Bathsheba and the child who died being punished?” — Do not turn Bathsheba into a seductress or speak of the child's death as the price of a victim's sin. Keep apart the tragic outcome an ancient text describes and the principle we hold today: hold the offender clearly to account and protect the victim.

✨In one sentence: “The story of David does not beautify a powerful man's crime; it exposes it. Repentance is not an excuse for keeping your position — it has to show itself in truth, in accountability, and in protecting the victim.”