Welcome to The Hoosier Illuminati. Macintosh bigot, clothes horse, motorsports fanatic (as long as they turn right), Anglophile.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance. --Henry Ward Beecher

Dems, don’t make it bigger than it is.

You’d never heard of the guy until two days ago, and you know he didn’t exactly have a White House pass.  Of course, I’m talking about Rev. Ted Haggard, formerly of Yorktown, Indiana. 

Is the guy a hypocrite?  Well, sure, of course he is, but there’s nothing about being a Christian that shields you from wanting sex outside of your marriage, being a homosexual or taking drugs.  You’re just supposed to know better than to act on those impulses on Saturday if you’re preaching against them on Sunday, but let’s please not turn this into something it’s not. 

This guy isn’t any kind of trusted presidential adviser, and this isn’t any kind of Republican scandal, as much as you’d like to make it one.  In Ted Haggard we have just another sad case of a man falling prey to his own dark desires.  It happens every single day of the week.  This particular case made the media only because the man happens to apparently be a high-profile Christian minister.  I say “apparently” because, like all of you, I’d never heard of the guy either.  Such is his power in the conservative community.  And, of course, because of the mind-numbing hypocrisy involved, but this is hardly the first time a minister has ever fallen from grace either.

We have a failure on the part of Ted Haggard to be what he claimed to be.  Now is an opportunity for the New Life Church to show that it is what it claims to be.  It clearly can’t have Haggard in its pulpit, but it can show him compassion.  It can help him with his addiction and it can help him with his marriage.  Now is an opportunity for New Life Church to show that it is bigger than its former leader by not casting him aside when he needs its fellowship the most. 

We’ll know if New Life Church is what it claims to be when the satellite trucks drive away.  Will they minister and witness to Ted Haggard and give him the help he and his wife need, or will they pretend they’ve never heard of him before?  Will they do the easy thing ... or the right thing?  This is a huge opportunity for them.  Let’s watch. 

Comments

Add a comment