Brian’s Reflection: Monday, Nov 2, 2009

“The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take
responsibility for the entire problem,” Haggard wrote.
“I am a deceiver and a liar. There’s a part of my life
that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring
against it for all of my adult life.”

- Former evangelical pastor Ted Haggart; on this day, 2006,
he resigned as the president of the National Association of
Evangelicals, after he was revealed as a man who had sex
with men.


It isn’t “dark and repulsive”. Except to him – at least in public statement. He was only a “deceiver and liar” essentially and most fundamentally to himself. And he was the “victim” of our culture and of American twisted evangelical and other manifestations of Christianity - so homophobic. But you know, “What goes around comes around”. It’s called karma. Or, the consequences of the Golden Rule. For me, like so many others, Haggart becomes a symbol of the balefulness of Lying about “God’s truth”. One’s sexuality is “God-given”, part of the mystery of being created in “God’s Image”. We could reject this in the past; not now.

Lying about the truth about oneself only inhibits the coming of the “Kingdom of God”, of the inner reality of human diversity. Think of how many mens’ and womens’ lives have been destroyed because we have allowed religious bigots to define the Gospel! Including their “own”. Ted Haggart. I can only suppose that he had some charism, to lead a congregation of 14,000 people, and the so-called “Evangelical” community.

But let’s be clear: Truth sets us free, Jesus says. Lying enslaves us and all society. Which only creates Hate and Sin and and Fear – all of which Jesus, according to “traditional” Christian theology, died to “save us from”.

Haggart says that the responsibility is his. But. He continues to lie. He continues to believe that with God’s help he can be heterosexual. That being Gay is a perversion. Well folks, if he persists in this denial of reality, he will arrive at the Pearly Gates only to find a saddened St. Peter (or whomever, depending on the religion) saddened by Haggart’s self-delusion and offering him the chance to embrace the Truth.

My advice Ted – and all you represent, on all so-called “moral” and “ethical” issues? Embrace the Truth. Only that will set you free. Meanwhile, you and your ilk continue to deny American culture its greatness, religiously, politically, morally, ethically, and socially.

Brian+