Posted on 12/18/2013 6:39:15 AM PST by Gamecock
In 2006, Ted Haggard joined the “pantheon” of fallen megachurch pastors after being caught red-handed in a gay sex and drugs scandal. Most Christians weep over such incidents, grieve for the damage done to the church of Christ, pray that the man will repent and find forgiveness with God, and hope that he will take a quiet and unpublicized place in the church of Christ for the rest of his life.
Usually it’s a vain hope. As it was in this case too.
After a short period of “restoration,” the Haggards returned to the public eye with books, television interviews, and a re-launched ministry.
I suppose we all still hoped that despite appearances, there had been true repentance, that Haggard really had owned his sin, taken responsibility, accepted the blame, and sincerely confessed his guilt.
But a recent blog post raises a huge question mark against that hope. In Suicide, Evangelicals, and Sorrow, Haggard used the recent suicide of another megachurch pastor’s son, Isaac Hunter, to continue his attempts at resurrecting his name, reputation, and ministry. His post really is an almost perfect example of how not to repent.
So why highlight it? First, because it will help us to spot these characteristics when dealing with others who have fallen into public sin and scandal. Sadly, there are predictable patterns to these things that we’d do well to acquaint ourselves with so that we are not duped. And second, because we can use it as a personal heart-check to examine how we respond to our own sin.
1. I’m no worse than anyone else. In a number of places Haggard basically says, “OK, I’m not perfect, but neither are you. We all fall short. We’ve all had sin intrude horribly into our lives. Only Christ is perfect.” In other words, why make such an example of me when you’re no better.
2. My problem was not spiritual. ”The therapeutic team that dug in on me insisted that I did not have a spiritual problem.”
3. It was something that happened to me. “Contrary to popular reports, my core issue was not sexual orientation, but trauma.” It’s not so much about what I did, or who I am, but about what someone else did to me.
4. I wasn’t responsible; someone else was to blame. ”I had a physiological problem rooted in a childhood trauma.”
5. I needed therapy, not faith and repentance. ”I needed trauma resolution therapy….I went through EMDR, a trauma resolution therapy.”
6. It wasn’t a personal choice. Haggard asks: “Do we actually believe that the many pastors who have been characterized as fallen decided to be hateful, immoral, greedy, or deceitful?” Then answers: “I think not.”
7. Christians are cruel and unforgiving. In a number of places Haggard attacks Christians saying that they lack sympathy, grace, and forgiveness. “My sin never made me suicidal, but widespread church reaction to me did.” He also speaks of the “brutal mail” and “hurtful communications” he received, and he imagines the Warrens and Hunters did too. He lambasts an “evangelical culture that alienates those who fall and spiritualizes their struggles.”
8. Attack the accusers. Throughout this piece Haggard is continually swiping at his accusers and those who initiated church discipline against him. They are “flat-earthers,” “Judaizers,” “scrutinizers,” “Pharisees” who are “too busy with the sins of others.”
9. You just don’t understand me: “When I explain [my trauma and the trauma resolution therapy] to most Evangelical leaders, their eyes glaze over.” He goes on to characterize Christians who rejected his excuses as simplistic fundamentalists.
10. My sins were not as bad as you think. ”My accuser failed his lie detector test and refused to take another, and I passed four lie detector tests given by three different polygraphers saying that the primary accusations were false.”
Sadly there is no shortage of naive people who will swallow this self-pitying self-justifying narrative hook, line, and sinker. (And sadly there’s no shortage of media outlets who will happily use Haggard as a stick to beat the “unforgiving” church with.)
Even more sadly, our own hearts can also do a Haggard when we are confronted with our own sins.
Real repentance looks and sounds radically different. It says: “I’m worse than you, worse than you think, and did worse than you can imagine. No matter what was in my past, I deliberately chose these sinful actions and accept full responsibility for them. I deserve whatever consequences result from them. I shamed my Lord and His church. If some Christians treat me badly, that’s OK, I understand. I can’t and won’t complain. I won’t say or write anything that will portray the Church or Christians in a bad light. I’ve brought enough damage on the church already. And I certainly won’t use the tragic suicides of others to further my own public rehabilitation.”
That’s the kind of repentance that leads to salvation (2 Corinthians 7:10).
Actually a good description of what Paul's talking about is found in 2 Corinthians 3:6-11 where he calls the law of the ten commandments "the ministration of death, written and engraved in stones" (v.7) and "the ministration of condemnation" (v.9) which glory is "done away" (v.7).
Again, it is not failure to keep the law that causes us to fall from grace. It is just the opposite. The whole of Galatians teaches that trying to be justified by the works of the law causes us to fall from grace and makes Christ "of no effect" (Gal 5:4). There is also a double curse on those who preach any other gospel than the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 1:8 & 1:9) which gospel he describes throughout the book of Galatians as well as Romans.
Paul changed nothing
That may be so. However, "the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw near unto God" (Hebrews 7:19).
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,”
Do a search for “psychoheresey” and read the free eBook. This plague of putting man’s word above God’s has inflicted the church. Regretfully, Haggard has fallen into this trap as well.
Your post is good. Paul didn't change the law, he wrote that WE have changed, and are set free from the law. The Jerusalem Council said the same thing. I'll trust the Jerusalem Council over any modern Messianic.
What the English translators called “the works of the law” was the false oral law of the Prushim.
And in 2Corinthians, you miss the fact that he called the laws written in stone “glorious.”
You have written your own gospel here and it is very much like Haggard’s.
You invent a false gospel in your twisting of Paul's words in Galatians 1; Paul called out no “gospel of Grace,”
[8] “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”
Beware of the curse of adding to Yehova's word.
What the English translators called “the works of the law” was the false oral law of the Prushim.
And in 2Corinthians, you miss the fact that he called the laws written in stone “glorious.”
You have written your own gospel here and it is very much like Haggard’s.
You invent a false gospel in your twisting of Paul's words in Galatians 1; Paul called out no “gospel of Grace,”
[8] “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”
Beware of the curse of adding to Yehova's word.
Jesus (not Paul) changed everything, not by abolishing the law, but by fulfilling it for us (Matt 5:17). We are no longer under the law (Rom 6:14). Jesus did what we could never do. So becasue of Jesus, we are righteous, accepted, forgiven and victorious, not because of our works, but because of His works. Hallelujah! THAT is the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Shout it from the mountain tops.
"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel." Galatians 1:6 - the theme of Galatians.
"But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20:24 (Paul speaking, but does it really matter? The Holy Spirit is speaking).
Paul and the Holy Spirit call it the gospel of the grace of God. Are you a greater authority than they?
you miss the fact that he called the laws written in stone “glorious”
And you miss the fact that the laws written in stone are called the ministration of death and condemnation whose glory is done away (2 Cor. 3:7,9,11) replaced by the greater glory of the ministration of the spirit and righteousness (2 Cor. 3:8-11) which righteousness is not by works of the law but by faith.
What comic book are you using for a Bible?
Hebrews 8:10
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
Hebrews 10:16
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
Amen!
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he says, A new covenant, he has made the first old. Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away. Heb 8:12-13.
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Heb 10:17.
This is the meaning of Jesus' cry, "It is finished!" Jesus did it all. We are redeemed, not by our works but by His blood. This is the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Another gospel of justification by the works of the law is cursed. Haggard and I and anyone who receives Jesus were forgiven 2000 years ago. The issue now is not sin but Christ. Receiving Christ gives us eternal life apart from how "bad" we are. Refusing to receive Christ brings death apart from how "good" we are.
"Rend your heart, and not your garments."—Joel 2:13.
For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. Rom 10:2-3
Indeed.
I have the app on my smart phone. Very useful.
What the English translators called “the works of the law” was the false oral law of the Prushim.
The issue immediately at question in the Galatian church was whether Christians needed to be circumcised.
Please tell us: was circumcision required by the "false oral law of the Prushim," or by the law of God as received by Moses?
No, that was not the issue in the post.
Try to concentrate.
.
Really? - I thought that Paul was the author of
Romans 2:
[12] For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;>> “The Jerusalem Council said the same thing” <<
[13] (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified
Oh? Maybe your Bible lacks Acts 15:
[19] Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
[20] But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
[21] For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.
Now what was that that Moses wrote?
"Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, “You must be circumcised and keep the law”—to whom we gave no such commandment—it seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . . For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well." Acts 15:23-29
(editor-surveyor: Not as smart as I'd hoped he'd be)
I believe we are at the end of time.. we see the the fulfillment of scriptural parables that warned us of what would happen to the church .. The wolves are more than at the door, they stand in places of church honor and teach those with itching ears.
Do any of you listen to fighting for the faith? Chris plays the sermons of these people and they are self centered and self serving ..they really believe the bible is all about them
Hey! How are you doing?
Long time, no see.
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