By by Jesse Galef
How does a man recover from publicly first condemning homosexuality in front of thousands and then being caught in a meth-crazed sexual affair with another man? I don’t know either, but if you have ideas I’m sure Ted Haggard would love to hear them.
Poor guy. He’s back at home “healing rapidly” and wants to start prayer sessions again.
“A couple of weeks ago we decided we’d like to have a prayer meeting at our house,” said Haggard. “Now we’ll see how many come. We thought about going to one, but because of my deal we knew that some people would be awkward there. So we thought, if we have one at our house then everyone who comes is comfortable with what’s gone on in my life.”
Haggard said he has no expectations. It could draw five people, it could draw 200, he said.
I got a chuckle from this:
Haggard said his struggles parallel those in the Bible.
“Most of the primary characters of the Bible had horrible, horrible incidents in their lives. David misused his power to murder people. He was an adulterer. And he was still a man after God’s own heart,” Haggard said.
Well, of course David was “still a man after God’s own heart” – God can relate to those urges! Did Haggard miss the stories about God’s senseless slaughter and that one time he impregnated a married women?
On a more serious note, I can recognize that this is a man struggling with beliefs and feelings that are difficult to reconcile, and I hope he can find peace one way or another. Yes, the suffering is due in large part to his own mistakes, but I don’t like to imagine what he must be going through.
If he’s looking to preach again, he could always apply for a job on the supposedly reformed-gay “Love Won Out” tour. As far as I can see, the conference’s purpose is to help people cope with unwanted homosexuality both in themselves and in loved ones. Alas, they do this by insisting that it can and should be overcome.
There are some redeeming qualities of the tour – it’s nice that they teach parents not to disown gay children and it’s nice that they try to present everything with love instead of hatred… Congratulations; you’re at least attempting to mitigate the damage your deranged views on sex have done to people’s self-esteem, their families, and their relationships. Bra-vo. My friend Carrie Poppy sums it up nicely in her Examiner.com article, saying:
“Forgive me if I don’t stand up and cheer. Your bronze-age religion instills deep guilt, fear and self-loathing in otherwise healthy individuals, and then helps them deal with those emotions by encouraging their denial of self-identity? Onward, Christian soldiers!”
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28 Comments
I’d pity him his torments of self-denial and self-loathing if he wasn’t such an arsehole. But he is. So I don’t.
It’s the Sanford defense!
“On a more serious note, I can recognize that this is a man struggling with beliefs and feelings that are difficult to reconcile, and I hope he can find peace one way or another. Yes, the suffering is due in large part to his own mistakes, but I don’t like to imagine what he must be going through.”
_____________
I doubt Haggard actually believes in god, and I don’t think he’s suffering for his faith. Fiction and reality can’t be reconciled without dishonesty. The fiction is evangelic Christianity, and the reality is that dude is a homosexual — the dishonesty is that the two can be reconciled. What he’s struggling with is how to turn a buck and regain power and influence now that he’s busted and the jig is up. Fortunately, people who choose to believe fiction over reality can easily overlook both the obvious homosexuality and the hypocrisy of one of their chosen leaders.
It’s called “compartmentalisation”, and people do it all the time. The chances are, he’s only lying to himself.
If he believes that homosexuality is a choice, that implies that everyone goes through the same temptations for hot man-on-man loving that he does, and he can easily reconcile his beliefs with his natural inclinations simply by trying not to act on them.
It seems rather heavy-handed to declare that he can’t possibly believe what he claims, just because that would make him a hypocrite.
I agree. Such duality is not uncommon – people rationalise all sorts of things to themselves in order to maintain a status quo.
As much of an example of what’s wrong with Western Christianity, Haggerty is simply repeating something that is well-accepted by Christians. David did many terrible things. The fact that he was still called ‘a man after God’s own heart’ does not mean that God condones any of those things, simply that David, though he often failed, and failed quite spectacularly, tried to do what was right.
And as wrong-headed as Haggerty and those like him are, they do not invalidate Christianty as a whole. I would hope that more people come to realize that there is more to the world than you hear about in the mainstream media and decide not to base their entire opinion of a religion on the things they hear on the evening news. Can you imagine if that was where you got all your information on something like global warming, or poverty and conflict in Africa?
“And as wrong-headed as Haggerty and those like him are, they do not invalidate Christianty as a whole. ”
The lack of evidence for their beliefs seems to do it all by itself.
The self destruction and inconsistency of its followers are just icing on the cake.
“As much of an example of what’s wrong with Western Christianity, Hagg[ard] is simply repeating something that is well-accepted by Christians. David did many terrible things. The fact that he was still called ‘a man after God’s own heart’ does not mean that God condones any of those things, simply that David, though he often failed, and failed quite spectacularly, tried to do what was right.”
The god of David, and of Haggard supposedly, ordered the massacre of nations, the deaths of innocents, and the death of gays. I agree, both men after their god’s heart, though I have not heard about Haggard calling for good, old-fashioned Holy Land conquering.
“And as wrong-headed as Hagg[ard] and those like him are, they do not invalidate Christianty as a whole.”
You’re right. Christianity, and by extension the Abrahamic faiths, has splintered so much since the Old Testament times that it’s hard to invalidate it; there are some claiming that “god is love”, not bothering to look at the other faces of their god as depicted in the rest of the Bible. Suffice to say, Christianity has become a religion of “so long as there’s Jesus, it’s Christian” cherry-pickers.
“I would hope that more people come to realize that there is more to the world than you hear about in the mainstream media and decide not to base their entire opinion of a religion on the things they hear on the evening news.”
You’re absolutely right. That’s what the internet is for, catching all the news stories that the evening news doesn’t have time to run.
And, until such a time as the wishy-washy moderates take back their religion from the likes of Haggard, Falwell, Robertson, the Vatican, and other outspoken Christian extremists, you’ll have to make due with the fact that Christianity is being misconstrued, though, with their track records, it’s hard to misconstrue the Abrahamic faiths.
“Can you imagine if that was where you got all your information on something like global warming, or poverty and conflict in Africa?”
Actually, from my local city newspaper, they have covered most of what you’re talking about. Not as in-depth as I’d like, but it certainly gives me incentive to research more into what they’re reporting. Besides that, you really would be foolish to discount the fact that information spreads around the globe incredibly fast these days; sneeze in the wrong place and you’ll hear about from the other side of the world.
“The lack of evidence for their beliefs seems to do it all by itself.
The self destruction and inconsistency of its followers are just icing on the cake.”
We’ll have to agree to disagree. From my perspective, there is plenty of evidence for my beliefs, but we’re all biased, as much as we’d like to think otherwise. If someone can come to me with conclusive proof that a god cannot exist, I will believe them. I’m reasonable, but I believe, that, if there is no god, physics or logic will be able to prove that fact, and thus far, they have not.
“The god of David, and of Haggard supposedly, ordered the massacre of nations, the deaths of innocents, and the death of gays.”
Believe me, I’ve struggled with that as much as anyone and I still don’t have an answer that will satisfy you. My own understanding, and I do not claim to speak for anyone but myself on this is as follows. I’m going to apologize in advance, because I know everything that follows will be taken the wrong way. What seems good and right from our limited perspective may be wrong when viewed from an omniscient, omnipotent perspective. It may have been the only way to create the conditions necessary for Jesus’s life. it may have been some other reason.
One thing to note is that God does not leave his command to wipe out the Canaanites open-ended. He stops them within certain geographical boundaries, among other limits. Honestly, the peoples destroyed by the Israelites had some extremely disgusting, brutal, and unjust societies at the time. Women were property. Human sacrifice was commonplace. As callous as it sounds, they, as a society, were hardly innocents. If the Israelites had done as they were told, the cycle of death in Palestine would have ceased, and a society would have been put in place that, while far from perfect, was better by our moral standards than what was there originally.
With regard to the laws set down in the Torah, they were written down by a man or men at some point during their history, and that fact introduces interpretation and bias. What God intended was not always carried out. Also, if God had spoken directly through Moses the code of laws from a suitably progressive country today, they would have laughed in his face and run him out of the camp, just as fellow scientists would have reacted if Isaac Newton had started talking about quantum mechanics or relativity. They simply were not ready for it. Because God chooses not to mess with our free will, things like that happen.
With regard to the rest of of your reply, Kilre, I agree with you, for the most part. Christianity has splintered far too much. One of the things that Christians are given the authority to do is to create new interpretations of the Bible. This gives the church the ability to adapt to today’s world, but has had the unfortunate side-effect of causing massive division due to petty squabbles. Furthermore, part of the reason I read sites like this is so that I challenge myself to ponder the difficult questions, so that my faith is not blind.
Apologies for the length. I hope it makes some level of sense.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree. From my perspective, there is plenty of evidence for my beliefs, …”
Care to post some of this evidence as one thing that religions would love to have is real evidence and not the blnd faith on which they exist …
“If someone can come to me with conclusive proof that a god cannot exist, I will believe them. I’m reasonable, but I believe, that, if there is no god, physics or logic will be able to prove that fact, and thus far, they have not.”
Firstly you don’t believe in just any old god but a specific version of a god and secondly you are quiet happy to to dismiss the many other thousands of gods without them being disproved, in the same way I have. Why is your versiion of god so special that you have to disprove it?
If someone can come to me with conclusive proof that a god cannot exist, I will believe them.
It is more along the lines of, no one can prove a negative. In that sense, all of the thousands of gods that we as a species have created still probably exist in limbo somewhere.
I’m reasonable, but I believe, that, if there is no god, physics or logic will be able to prove that fact, and thus far, they have not.
The interesting things I’ve found out, in the very few years of critical thinking I’ve subjected myself to since my deconversion, are: you can prove anything with logic, which makes many things dubious from the start, and you can prove almost anything with equations, like how to relate things to spheres. Additionally, a talk by Lawrence Krauss glosses over how physics can prove a universe does not need a creator being, however this just goes with what I said earlier, equations and logic can be used to prove anything.
What seems good and right from our limited perspective may be wrong when viewed from an omniscient, omnipotent perspective.
It is from our perspective that everything should be judged, until such a time as a being with a perspective as you posit has been shown to be the one pulling the strings of causality.
It may have been the only way to create the conditions necessary for Jesus’s life. it may have been some other reason.
Unfortunately for Jesus, he was not the only messiah preaching at that time, nor the only messiah of importance. I will grant however that, if the story has truth to it, signs point to, according to the Bible, Jesus setting himself up for his fall, since he was his own father, and knew the future.
One thing to note is that God does not leave his command to wipe out the Canaanites open-ended. He stops them within certain geographical boundaries, among other limits. Honestly, the peoples destroyed by the Israelites had some extremely disgusting, brutal, and unjust societies at the time.
I haven’t studied much of the history of the ancient Middle East, so that’s outside my knowledge.
However, considering that the Jews viewed the Canaanites as worshipers of a false god, I would have to claim literary bias on behalf of the Bible. And, going on what I’ve read of the Old Testament, the Jews then weren’t much better than the people they were attempting to kill off. Regardless, killing off a people you view as repugnant is hardly moral, especially when your god greets them with leprosy.
If you have historical recommendations that elucidate the Canaanites outside of the Hebrew Bible, I’d be interested in reading up on them, as civilizations have always interested me; Wikipedia can only go so far.
Human sacrifice was commonplace.
Among the Hebrews as well.
With regard to the laws set down in the Torah, they were written down by a man or men at some point during their history, and that fact introduces interpretation and bias.
The commandments were written, supposedly, by Yahweh himself. However, I agree that, over the many years of oral tradition between their inception and their scribing, and their subsequent changes as scribes passed them down for interpretation, would introduce bias from our part.
Also, if God had spoken directly through Moses the code of laws from a suitably progressive country today, they would have laughed in his face and run him out of the camp, just as fellow scientists would have reacted if Isaac Newton had started talking about quantum mechanics or relativity.
The problem exists, however, that quantum mechanics and relativity require mathematics, which was available before Isaac Newton’s time, and he would have likely been able to persuade someone if he tutored them in the new, advanced equations; whereas gods, to prove themselves, just need to whip out something supernatural, which anyone at any time would have been able to comprehend. Just go to a magic show.
They simply were not ready for it.
I submit that humans are more ready for superstition than science; it makes more sense in the gut. Truthiness, as Colbert says.
Because God chooses not to mess with our free will, things like that happen.
We’ve had no free will since we were created. According to the Christian end of things, we were created so that we would eventually eat from the tree, get kicked out, sin, and that Jesus, being himself the one that created us, would sacrifice himself to himself to forgive us for something he, as the creator god, made us do. That’s hardly free will.
With regard to the rest of of your reply, Kilre, I agree with you, for the most part. Christianity has splintered far too much. One of the things that Christians are given the authority to do is to create new interpretations of the Bible. This gives the church the ability to adapt to today’s world, but has had the unfortunate side-effect of causing massive division due to petty squabbles. Furthermore, part of the reason I read sites like this is so that I challenge myself to ponder the difficult questions, so that my faith is not blind.
Memes change over time.
“I’m reasonable, but I believe, that, if there is no god, physics or logic will be able to prove that fact, and thus far, they have not.”
B: “There is a China Pot revolving around the sun”
S: “Why do you think so?”
B: “You can’t disprove it, therefore IT IS”
[...]
S: “Gotcha! I’ve done a CPD (China Pot Detector) and it didn’t detect your China Pot”
B: “Oh, I forgot to say it is a trans-dimensional China Pot, surely you cannot detect it in our time-space”
Physics are not able to disprove a magical being. Let’s see another example, you may believe in a particular version of god, who did cause “the flood”.
Fact n1: there is not enough water on the world to cover all the land but some high mountains.
Fact n2: there is not possible to build a wood arch big enough, and to catch a pair of every species in the world
Rational conclusion: it is a human tale
Not so rational conclusion: it is a god-inspired tale
Irrational conclusion: God did create the necessary water, cause the flood, and then he elliminated the water.
I (or physics) can’t disprove the last conclusion, as your suposed god is a magical think that could -according to your definition) do it. Of course The Matrix (are we are only programs running in a computer) can do it too. Of course god and the matrix could have created the world, with all our memories, a minute ago (and with the fossil records, the red-shift and radiation background) I also can’t disprove those things. But… that way of thinking doesn’t let us to extract any useful conclusion about our world. They are not scientific hypotheses as we are -precisely- not able to test them.
So… physics can’t disprove God, AS EXPECTED.
There is a simple, natural and rational explanation about god, as a product of human minds. There is a natural and rational -maybe not so simple- explanation about the human evolution, about the beginning of life -still working on it- and the “creation” of the universe which don’t need the existence of a magical unnatural being.
And that why I don’t believe in god, because I don’t need him to explain the universe. Yes, but I can’t disprove your god, Allah, Zeus, the FSM or the fairies.
So I guess the ends justify the means. A “loving” omniscient, omniponent being can order the slaughter of hundreds of thousands; the rape of virgins; and the bashing of babies heads. All this so that thousands of years down the road, the conditions will be right for Jesus to be born. Wow. As an intelligent person (which you clearly are), Christianity certainly makes you have to spin and twist facts and reason to fit into any kind of ethical or moral model.
As an aside, god did seem to have a special affinity for the sick b*stards in the bible. Not only the ones mentioned above. Don’t forget Lot – the one man God loved enough to save from Soddam and Gommorah – had his two daughters raped by the townspeople. In another part of the bible, his daughters seduced their own father. Nice family. Certainly the family I would have chosen to save. But then I’m not a loving, omniscient, omnipotent being so what do I know?
Sorry – I was writing to Aeilluindae.
“I can recognize that this is a man struggling with beliefs”
And I can recognize that this man is struggling with his wallet.
If he was truly struggling with his beliefs then he would keep a very low profile and become a hermit. He wants to get in the money again. – nothing complicated about this. Don’t credit him with anything but greed and hypocrisy.
I think that is clear to everyone except the most brainwashed.
Heart you, Jesse Galef.
… misused his power to murder people. He was an adulterer. And he was still a man after God’s own heart
That pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the God of the Old Testament.
Ted’s just looking for another cushy gig, but I doubt he’ll find one. He’s doomed!
*sigh* Why is it so hard for Ted to see what his faith is doing to him and just come out of the closet?
Because being gay is a CHOICE! He must have CHOSEN to get turned on by rippling, oiled abs and firm, muscular pecs! And now he’s CHOSEN not to! It’s a CHOICE, I tell you!
/sarcasm
“*sigh* Why is it so hard for Ted to see what his faith is doing to him and just come out of the closet?”
because then he loses income.
He should burn in hell!
Hmmmm….almost makes one wish there was a hell, right???? lol
Well, I guess part of his life parallels David’s relationship with Jonathan, anyway.
Ted Haggard is simply setting the scenario for once again gaining a tax-exempt status, by claiming he runs a ‘church’.
He obviously has ‘issues’, but in my opinion, his grab for regaining his religion is nothing more than looking for that brass ring that provides attention & best of all, money.
A dime a dozen these hucksters…when will people stop falling for such obvious con jobs??
Born again Christians love a good testimony. The more sinful your life, the better the testimony. Just like a gangster rapper who goes to prison or gets shot, pastor Ted now has some street cred.
Someday his life story will be on the radio.
http://www.unshackled.org/
Do you all remember Donny Pauling who commented here briefly? I think most people didn’t get along with him very well, but I’m not sure I’m remembering perfectly.
He actually interviewed Ted, and posted the lengthy text to the interwebz. I think one should at least hear what Ted has to say (i.e., how his views on homosexuality and his own sexuality have changed) before being too hard on him.
Here’s the interview: http://donnysramblings.com/2009/05/12/conversations-with-ted-haggard-a-prelude/