Ted Haggard
Ted Haggard said yesterday in an open letter to his congregation that he is a "liar and a deceiver" and is guilty of "sexual immorality."
In the materials that I have read I didn't find anything about Haggard actually admitting that he had sex with a gay male prostitute, but it sounds as if "sexual immorality" is a bit more than the massage he first admitted to.
Is Haggard guilty of sexual immorality? If he did commit adultery, then the answer is yes. And it has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality. This is about one man fighting an inclination, and going outside the bond of marriage to satisfy himself. A Christian marriage is a convenant agreement that binds both partners to God, and Haggard overstepped all of those boundaries. It just so happened that he overstepped them with a man and not a woman, which gives Haggard and other fundamentalists the opportunity to blame homosexuality.
If Haggard had been warring internally against homosexuality his entire life, this will be the perfect time for him to say, "See, this is what can happen when one gives in to homosexual demons. Destruction is the result." NO, this is what happens when one gives in to sin of any kind. This situation is independent of homosexuality. Instead it deals with lies, deception, and adultery; and those things are destructive on any level.
While scandals like these continue to pop up, there are thousands of committed gay Christian couples who continue to live on in peace and with God at the center of their relationship. It's those couples who provide the most consistent Christian inspiration.
In the materials that I have read I didn't find anything about Haggard actually admitting that he had sex with a gay male prostitute, but it sounds as if "sexual immorality" is a bit more than the massage he first admitted to.
Is Haggard guilty of sexual immorality? If he did commit adultery, then the answer is yes. And it has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality. This is about one man fighting an inclination, and going outside the bond of marriage to satisfy himself. A Christian marriage is a convenant agreement that binds both partners to God, and Haggard overstepped all of those boundaries. It just so happened that he overstepped them with a man and not a woman, which gives Haggard and other fundamentalists the opportunity to blame homosexuality.
If Haggard had been warring internally against homosexuality his entire life, this will be the perfect time for him to say, "See, this is what can happen when one gives in to homosexual demons. Destruction is the result." NO, this is what happens when one gives in to sin of any kind. This situation is independent of homosexuality. Instead it deals with lies, deception, and adultery; and those things are destructive on any level.
While scandals like these continue to pop up, there are thousands of committed gay Christian couples who continue to live on in peace and with God at the center of their relationship. It's those couples who provide the most consistent Christian inspiration.
posted by Jen Austin at 11:13 AM
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