Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Praise the Lord! Haggard is Cured!
After three weeks of intensive counseling, Ted Haggard is "completely heterosexual". The idea that a man who is clearly homosexual, or at least bisexual, could be cured of this like someone might cure a disease is laughable. He's gay, and no matter how hard they pray to the Lord to reverse his gayness those tendencies will always be there. It's amazing that some people can convince themselves that homosexuality is a choice, that a person might choose to suffer the kind of ridicule that many homosexuals suffer. It also seems ridiculous that a group that worships a merciful being like Jesus could only find Haggard acceptable upon his conversion.
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3 comments:
I believe that the official Christian position on homosexuality is that homosexual desires (i.e. temptation) is not a choice but a reflection of man's sin nature and all of us have temptations of various natures. While these differing temptations are not a choice, our decision to ACT upon them IS a choice. I suspect that Haggard is no more "cured" of these temptations than a recovering alcoholic or drug addict is of his or her temptations to drink or to use. Finally, your statement that Haggard was only aceptable to his Christian brethren after his "conversion" is nonsense. The Christians around Haggard continued to love and accept Haggard throughout this process. Jesus teaches that we are to hate the sin but to love the sinner and from what I understand of this process, that is what most of the Christians in Haggard's life did here. Can you honestly say that those in the homosexual activist community would continue to love and accept someone who left the homosexual lifestyle in the same way? Or would that individual be ridiculed and ostracized by these people? It is funny to me how many people seem to enjoy criticizing Christians these days but who fail to recognize that, while many Christians fall short on a regular basis, the message of Christ's love for the world, never fails.
My criticism is of hypocritical Christians who do not carry the "message of Christ's love". Unfortunately Evangelicals have been stereotyped as religious extremists who hate not only the sin but also the sinner, and who are intent on imposing their beliefs on governmental process. But it's hard to blame people for that stereotype with spokesmen like Haggard, who denounced gays but was himself one, and fire and brimstone preachers like Falwell, Robertson, and Graham (jr.). If I appear to have lumped all Christians together in this post, then I apologize for the misunderstanding. The purpose was to point to the absurdity that his group would try to convert him to something he cannot be.
If Haggard "denounced" gays, as you say, then he wasn't much of a Christian either. If, on the other hand, he denounced homosexual behavior, while participating in it himself, he is no different than any Christian who points out sin because we are ALL sinners. If we cannot point out sin without having to be free from sin ourselves then sinful behavior can not be identified by anyone. Jesus commanded Christians to both support one another but to also hold one another accountable. Both commands are to be done out of love for one another. People tend to want the support but would rather not be held accountable for their actions. It is right that Haggard's Christian family hold him accountable AND support him in overcoming sinful behavior. Haggard may never be able to fully eradicate his sinful desires but with the right support, he can choose not to act on them. I agree with you that there are many public figures that purport to represent Christ who do a poor job of conveying Jesus' overall message, though. Christians are called to be a light to the world in order to attract people to Jesus' message. I certainly don't think that Christian's should try to "impose" our beliefs on government processes, nor on other people, for that matter. However, in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), Jesus commands his followers to share the gospel message of salvation with all the people of the world. This means that evangelism is NOT optional for a Christian, which is why I always laugh when I hear the term "evangelical Christian" because I always think to myself, "Is there any other kind of Christian?" Where the stereotype comes from is the radical fringe of so-called Christians that think Christ's command to evangelize includes some sort of compulsion when all that we are called to do is to share the gospel message in love and then leave people (and the Holy Spirit) to close the deal on their own. Once again, flawed messengers but a perfect message.
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