The Two-Faced Church of Something-or-other

I can definately admit that I rely entirely too much on my own brain.. although on the same token, I think the church is plagued with people who don't use their brains enough..

The frightening part is that it is those ones who are running the show.

There is a balance that needs to be achieved, however I don't think it is possible to do that in an organized setting.. too much politics.. too many people with double standards.. too many "leaders" who have convinced themselves that they have kicked their "sin" habit

It's like the whole Ted Haggard thing.. I read an interview with the assistant pastor who took over for him, and they claimed that after three weeks of intensive counselling, he is suddenly a "cured" heterosexual and drug free (after decades of secret gay love affairs and meth binges).. which is just.. beyond pretentious, and ridiculous.

The pastor went on to talk about (rightly so) that God does not see sin on a bell curve, and that one sin is no worse than any other sin to God. Almost in the next breath he says that "of course, Ted Haggard will never be allowed into any ministry leadership ever again - he's banned."

Like WTH? So here is where logic takes me, and I believe this is more accurate than most Christians would like to believe.. but if pastors truly believe that all sins are equal, and yet they will ban someone from leadership for coming out as gay (sinning), especially if they believe the person to be "cured" as this guy claims, then in order for them to reconcile their own leadership role it must mean that somewhere inside their small, deluded heads they believe themselves to be free of sinning. Sure, they'll talk a blue streak about how badly they used to sin in their pasts, but clearly, since they are now worthy to be pastors and church leaders, they must have somehow learned how NOT to sin, and are now perfect.

So I have to ask myself - SHOULD a person like Ted Haggard be allowed to get back onto the pulpit? I guess my question is - why not? What is it that seperates one sinful lifestyle from another? Find me a pastor who isn't living a sinful lifestyle and I'll buy you an island. The problem we have decided that there are sins that are acceptable and sins that are not, which is garbage.

It can definately be argued that there is a difference between "sinning" and living a "sinful lifestyle", but when it comes down to it, I don't believe there is a difference. We are ALL living in sin, some of us just do it in less obvious ways. And that is the key word I think - "Less obvious" .. it is more a question of PR than it is about anything scriptural -- we don't like how it LOOKS for a gay man to be a pastor, or even in church for that matter, because their sin is on display, as opposed to all of the secret sins that every other person lives in..

A good friend of mine made the argument that "just because you get angry at someone once in the week doesn't mean you are living in sin unless you don't recognize it and continue to harbor bad feelings for that person...if you realize it and ask for forgiveness from the person and God...that is a lot different then being in an affair whether homo or hetero." And I do believe she has a point.

My thoughts on this, however, are that being angry isn't necessarily a sin. Living an angry lifestyle is. So if getting angry at someone "once a week" is a downfall for someone, that means that they are getting angry at other people at other times during the week, and inevitably every day of that person's life they are being angry at people. That's a sinful lifestyle.

The funny thing is, I have heard pastors use examples out of their own lives for comic effect, like storie about habitual road-rage, for example. I'll admit, road rage can make for some awfully funny stories, but the fact that these stories are used for comic effect demonstrates how badly deluded we are, that we actually have put a thing like "habitual road rage" in the "acceptable sin" category. I doubt anyone would laugh if a pastor started telling funny stories about how gay he is.

Here's another example - in my experience Church women tend to be habitual gossips, however, as much as a Christian will admit that gossiping is a sin, when put to it, we will accept a woman as Godly despite her "little gossiping habit" much more readily than we would accept a homosexual man for his "little gay sex habit".

Again, what's the difference?