On the Square: Ted Haggard. Gays and Hypocrisy

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:

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.

Guys, guys. Please stop acting as if you know the mind of God or that God has given you instructions beyond "inspect the fruit." Because I don't think you know His Mind and that you've forgotten the task He gave you (and all of us).

If the tree is known by its fruit and the fruit is sour, you avoid that tree and that fruit. If the fruit is bruised, then it's still possible to cut out the bruised part and use the remainder of the fruit.

God is so much greater than we are and He knows all. We are ignorant of what is in a man's heart. All we see is the fruit. And it is our duty to discern if the fruit is sour and to be avoided or just bruised and needs God's surgical skills to cut away the bad so that the remainder of the fruit can be used by Him.

God used a Saul by breaking him and as the apostle Paul he lived out his life in reconciliation for God's forgiving grace. And forgiving Saul of complicity in Stephen's murder was not "cheap grace."

Remember, Micah 6:8 I will shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: Verily, to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitous with thy God. (Douay-Rheims translation) (Check the definition of "solicitious" because it means a lot more than just "humbly.") Thanks as always.

Of course not. The Blood is more than sufficient. But we allow me to share with you a few words:

Let us go forward, then, to mature teaching and leave behind us the first lessons of the Christian message. We should not lay again the foundation of turning away from useless works and believing in God; of the teaching about baptisms and the laying on of hands; of the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment. Let us go forward! And this is what we will do, if God allows. For how can those who abandon their faith be brought back to repent again? They were once in God's light; they tasted heaven's gift and received their share of the Holy Spirit; they knew from experience that God's word is good, and they had felt the powers of the coming age. And then they abandoned their faith! It is impossible to bring them back to repent again, because they are again crucifying the Son of God and exposing him to public shame. God blesses the soil which drinks in the rain that often falls on it and which grows plants that are useful to those for whom it is cultivated. But if it grows thorns and weeds, it is worth nothing; it is in danger of being cursed by God and will be destroyed by fire.
(Heb 6:1-8)

Note: I didn't write that.

"What is an unSaved man doing selling Salvation?"

First, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox as he treads out the corn". It is no problem whatsoever for the preacher to be paid for taking on the yoke of ministering to the flock.

However, that is the minor point. The larger one is the quote I titled. Consider that St. Paul said "I know there is a crown laid up for me." That is, there is Salvation awaiting him, but he also says "I have run the race to the finish", meaning that now that he is about to die and assuming he dies still fully committed to faith in Jesus Christ, then the crown of Salvation will be granted him. I suspect many read this passage to say that Paul knows he is Saved. For instance, I suspect that I Cor 9:24-27 is used for this exact purpose, to relate the notion of the crown to something Paul can know he has achieved, once he has [kept] under his body and [brought] it into subjection. After all, he is worried 'lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.'

I can see how that sounds like the proper justification for judging and disposing of Ted Haggard. Did not Paul elsewhere also say "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou has heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us. This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me;of whom are Phygellus and Hemogenes." Paul also writes that he has given an unworthy preacher over to Satan. Read literally that says, if a ministering brother prove false, then reject him utterly.

But we cannot do so with Pastor Ted, Appy. How many times are we to forgive a brother who asks for it, seven times seven? 'Jesus saith unto [Peter], "I say not unto thee, 'Until seven times', but 'Until seventy times seven."' [St. Matt 18:22) Pastor Ted has repented, he has admitted fault, he has by this admission acclaimed the Word to be supreme and not affected by his own falseness: the Lord will be true even if all men are false, and Pastor Ted has affirmed this. That is, to me, the necessary element for forgiveness. So I grant it, gladly.

One further point I feel constrained to make: I cannot assent to the notion that any of can know we are Saved. I do not believe Paul thought that, though many of his texts in isolation lean that direction, even Romans 7. But you make the correct corollary that arises if Salvation could be known before death: such a person could not henceforth sin. Against this I cite Romans 7:14-18. Paul says he knows what is the right thing (that is, he knows what God has expressed as His will and what He has not) but he admits he knows not how to do it. That says to me that he knows, even after years of self-rebuke, immersion in God's word, preaching it in season and out, he can still sin.

So can Pastor Ted. So can you. So can I. We cannot KNOW we are Saved. We live in hope, we affirm our faith and we seek His grace but we also hold ourselves low, for such things as passing judgment on another man unto damnation in the face of his clean and evident repentance is beyond our skill and outside what God has assigned us to do, no matter who we are.

Now, what about those who presume to preach but who defy repentance, say many of the clergy in The Episcopal Church? I see their apostasy as a far worse sin than any of the lusts so graphically, luridly and morbidly assigned to Pastor Ted. They revel in their defiance of God's clear word and presume to strike I Tim and II Tim from the Bible by avoidance rather than having even so much courage as to literally eliminate those texts. There they still stand in Episcopal bibles, open rejections of the path that church has taken. I think that these folk openly reject the notion that there is anything for which they need to consider repenting and, as such, I have warrant to do with them as Paul did with the apostates of his time, to give them over to Satan and consider then excommunicate.

I hope that this discussion clarifies the distinctions here and pray fervently that you find the charity to accept Pastor Ted's repentance and apology. He may have a terrible time ever ministering in any official capacity again, but his own experience with grievous sin, if gracefully understood and used as a tool to teach abstinence and faithfulness to God could also prove a powerful ministry in and of itself. We never know how God intends to make use of us for His purposes and we err if we presume to dictate what those purposes and means could be.

God be with you, brother.

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