Posted on 11/10/2006 1:22:09 PM PST by madprof98
Richard John Neuhaus writes:
This is but an addendum to Robert Miller’s fine reflection on the meaning of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is not easy. It is a very deliberate and specific practice that takes some working at. To cite a recent instance, the revelation that German novelist Günter Grass—lauded for years as the conscience of his country—willingly served in the Waffen-SS may qualify as hypocrisy. For decades he relentlessly insisted that anyone tainted by Nazism should be excluded from the moral community of public discourse, knowing all along that he was complicit in what he condemned in others. He was lying. He obviously did not believe what he said he believed and demanded that others believe.
As Miller points out, the case of Ted Haggard is very different. An oddity in much commentary on Haggard is the insistence that he denied who he really is. This is the mortal sin of being “in the closet.” The pertinent text countering that way of thinking is Romans 7:13–20:
Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment become sinful beyond measure. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil that I do not want is what I do. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
Note that carnal and flesh as used by St. Paul do not refer only, or even chiefly, to sexual sins. The carnal and fleshly is all that is opposed to the Spirit of God.
In tones of adolescent rage and petulance, which is the characteristic gay voice, commentator after commentator has accused Haggard of hypocrisy, insisting that what he claims to see as his sin is, in fact, his true self, and demanding that he embrace his sin as his authentic identity. At the core of such commentary is an adamantly binary view of sexuality—one is either straight or gay, all the way. This completely ignores findings otherwise celebrated by proponents of sexual liberation, such as Kinsey’s scale of 1 to 5 in heterosexual/ homosexual orientation. Much more important, it is a naive indifference to the reality of the conflicted self, which is the subject of all great spiritual and psychological writing, as well as the best of the novels and dramas of our civilization. Gay propagandists have room neither for St. Paul nor Hamlet.
Another oddity is that gay and gay-friendly commentators assume that any publicity involving homosexuality—whether Ted Haggard or the Florida congressman who flirted with male pages—works to the benefit of their cause. This strikes me as highly doubtful. A congressional predator or Haggard’s liaisons with a male prostitute hardly enhances the public image of gayness. Of course, there are adult men who prey on girls and there are plenty of female prostitutes. But most Americans live in a heterosexual world where such deviance is recognized as deviance. Almost all the people they know do not prey on girls or patronize prostitutes.
But what they do know about the gay world? Largely the sleaze that comes to the surface in public scandals. There was an op-ed in Wednesday’s New York Times asserting that 70 percent of Americans personally know someone who is gay. That seems statistically improbable. Somewhere between 2 and 4 percent of American males identify themselves as gay. (The figure is much lower for women.) Most of them are congregated in cities, and in those parts of cities known to be gay-friendly. Chelsea and the West Village, along with the Castro district of San Francisco and counterparts in other larger cities, are not America. Gays live in such places precisely because they are not America.
Admittedly, young people in college, or at least in most colleges, do know personally people who are gay; and some of them they count as friends. Most campuses have special-interest LGBT groups, and students are indoctrinated in gay ideology under the rubric of opposing “homophobia.” At one Ivy League college, faculty members told me over dinner that one-third of the male students were at least “experimenting” with homosexuality. Among the women, there were also a large number of “LUGS” (Lesbian Until Graduation). Whether such developments will significantly increase the percentage of adults identifying themselves as gay or lesbian will, I suppose, be discovered in due course. Apart from an intuition for the natural built into human beings, there are all kinds of incentives and pressures militating against such a significant increase.
What most Americans know about being gay is distinctively unattractive and, in their view, morally repugnant. Gay advocates deceive themselves in thinking that the more people know about homosexuality the more they will approve of it. Moreover, it is self-evident to such advocates that gay trumps straight. If a Ted Haggard is by every indicator a good husband and father of his children, and also a preacher who teaches that homosexuality is morally disordered, but occasionally falls into sin and consorts with a male homosexual, it is obvious to such advocates that he is not a good husband and father but is gay. And a hypocrite to boot.
This is a self-serving illogicality that is not likely to convince anyone not captive to the gay ideology. I expect most people will continue to hold with the maxim to hate the sin and love the sinner. To the gay insistence that they love the sin and hate only those who call it sin, they will respond with St. Paul’s much more profound—dare I say nuanced?—understanding of the conflicted self.
Haggard was willingly seduced by Satan. He was in sin before he started fooling around with prostitutes and drugs. He was seduced by the favors of the world. Satan just called in the bill.
Someone asked me if this could cause people to leave that church. I said I sure hoped so. These moments are the times when the sheep are separated from the goats.
read later
Ready to cast the first stone, I see.
I'm not. I've got enough sins of my own to worry about, before I go around condemning Haggard.
In one family that I know of, there is a third cousin, a second cousin, a cousin, and a parent who are either gay or bisexual. And none of these people are closely connected... they may have seen each other once every seven years or so at family gatherings.
I don't know what explains the high numbers in this group. And conversely I do know of other families where there are no gay family members.
I think all statistics should be set aside for now, because nothing seems to be conclusive.
The problem is that Ted chose the East
Gen 13:10 And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the circuit of Jordan, that it was all well watered (before Jehovah destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah,) like the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt as you come to Zoar.
Gen 13:11 And Lot chose all the circuit of Jordan for himself. And Lot journeyed east; and they separated themselves from one another.
Noble but not Biblical when it comes to church leaders. we are supposed to test them and reject them.
1Jo 4:5 GNB
(5) Those false prophets speak about matters of the world, and the world listens to them because they belong to the world.
1Ti 1:3 GNB
(3) I want you to stay in Ephesus, just as I urged you when I was on my way to Macedonia. Some people there are teaching false doctrines, and you must order them to stop.
He's bleeding -- throw another rock!
FWIW, in terms of sexuality, Haggard was teaching true doctrine, not false, his personal sins on the matter notwithstanding.
Should he have been removed? Of course. But you're condemning him beyond that, and it's not your job.
The problem is that you are arrogating the keys to Hell and death to yourself, which you must know our Lord retained. I am prepared to forgive Ted Haggard the moment he asks for it (I think he already has, actually, and has made a pretty full and very public confession). What more he should do I do not know, but I ask that you consider him a fallen human, ergo, just about the same kind of creature you are yourself and I am myself. I do not throw stones here, nor make any allusion, so no one should draw any. We are each and every one capable of sin, and in extremity, great sin. We cannot know what will be the besetting sin that trips us up. All we really know is that our Lord gave His life on the Cross as an oblation for the sins He knew and knows we commit. He loves us anyway and He ordered us to love one another as He loves us.
Please do so, Appy.
God bless.
My guess is that an even larger percentage know someone who is an alcoholic. The difference is that the alcoholic goes to AA to try to stay straight.
This is a self-serving illogicality that is not likely to convince anyone not captive to the gay ideology. I expect most people will continue to hold with the maxim to hate the sin and love the sinner.
That's really tricky. If he were caught with a woman we might hate the sin and love the sinner, but wouldn't call him a good husband and father.
Nothing like a quick dose of Cheap Grace. Instead of calling him into account and making him responsible for his actions, we just throw out a quick forgive to someone who never hurt us in the first place. Imagine a friend coming to you and saying "I've done somethingreally bad and..." and you blurt "Whatever. It doesn't matter. I forgive you. Bye". We have started confusing "I don't care" with "I forgive"
The reason why Ted is in so much trouble is because we are too quick to brush off sin in our leaders. We aren't doing them any favors.
Obviously not. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit.
Pardon my noticing, but isn't he publicly disgraced, fired from his VERY lucrative preaching post and basically consigned to pervert hell in the minds of most irreligious Americans?
That sounds pretty harsh on any standard, unless you're intending to move to corporal punishment, just to make sure he doesn't miss the point.
Sorry. To assert Cheap Grace, you have to be assuming I'm saying he can have his ministry back, just like that. I'm not and I don't. And he would be forgiven, the sin would not be forgotten.
There's the distinction.
But Father Neuhaus's point is not that the public should forgive this guy for sinning against God and his family. The point is that gay activists have been chanting "Haggard = Bad Homosexual, McGreevy = Good Homosexual" because the former Governor, unlike the preacher, claimed (a) he was only following his nature and (b) thereby justified such behavior for himself and for others. To the extent anyone believes this madness, our society is the worse for it.
Saint Paul's letters are bad, then? After all, you can read what he said in Romans 7....
You might consider checking your eyes for planks, friend.
First Things' blog, like the journal itself, is always worth reading.
Yeah, perhaps that was the problem. Lucrative preaching job should be an oxymoron. You shouldn't get rich selling the work of the Holy Spirit. How many other lucrative preaching positions are secretly in trouble? How many of them will be relieved when they see the quick cheap grace extended to Haggard?
Haggard never did anything to me so I don't need to forgive him. But we need to raise up some Nathan's to keep these leaders in line. Too many of them are shearing the sheep. Haggard sold one doctrine and demonstrated another. What is an unSaved man doing selling Salvation?
Paul was unSaved in your eyes?
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