If conservative Christians believe homosexuality can be cured, why did they banish Ted Haggard? Why did the men who worked his miracle healing in the desert and announced that Haggard is 100% heterosexual then suggest it would be best that he move out of Colorado and seek a secular job? And why, in response, has Ted gone along with his church and begun taking courses on-line to get a master’s in psychology? Can anyone recall the last time those same leaders got press coverage of a newly hetero-ed ex-gay reclaiming at a “godly” life? Why not use Haggard’s making the “right choice” for all it’s worth? What kind of faith does this reveal in those who repent their sins in Jesus’ name?
The Ted Haggard scandal inspires these questions.
I know that most lgbt folks twitch at the word “choice,” but that’s the line they are selling. I grew up in those churches, and as a child I attended several of these denominations—Four Square, Assembly of God, and Faith Tabernacle. I learned one thing: whether a particular sin is minor or severe, that sin is the result of giving in to the temptations of Satan: a choice. In other words, in the world of the evangelical conservatives, there are no gay people, there are only straight people who are sinning. And, don’t forget, the ministerial mission in Bible-based churches is always to shame and thus mark as needing recovery—bringing back into the fold—the one who sinned. Getting right in the eyes of God.
So, following that logic (?) the conservative Christian movement has long held that homosexuality is curable, and the leaders of the faith have directed their sexuality-questioning flock toward “restoration.” That being the case, what is a church’s basis for depriving Haggard an ongoing personal connection with the people he failed? How else can Christians truly make informed decisions about a process their leaders have directed them to?
Ah, silly me, that assumes that deeper study is the goal. The true reason a church—in this case, the New Life Church—needs to remove and banish the homosexual sinner is to circumvent the congregation’s close observation, an observation that will reveal the fiction of restoration. Basically, the theology behind restoration, which insists that Christians who question its true allegiance to the Word are fallen away, has succeeding in blocking its godly citizenship from taking measure of its effectiveness.
I guess it’s worth noting that Focus on the Family’s James Dobson acknowledged on “Larry King” that the restoration process was intended to restore Haggard from being gay to not being gay. Far from the traditional assertion that those who indulge in homosexual desire are falling to temptation from Satan, Dobson seems to be acknowledging that someone is gay, but can quit acting on it. Not exactly a cure.
Haggard wrote to his flock that for extended periods of time, he would “enjoy victory and rejoice in freedom.” At some point he would experience desires that were “contrary to everything [he] believed in” struggling with what he termed “repulsive and dark.”
People critical of the “ex-gay” movement, such as Wayne Beson, author of “Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Movement,” lay the blame for such repulsion at the feet of the very organizations that claim to want to heal by creating a culture that, overtly or not, makes people “hate themselves for being gay,” which maintains the existence of the ex-gay movement.
Here we go ’round the Mulberry bush…
Your observations about the Haggard affair are spot on. On my blog I just posted on suicide and the push to classify ex-gay ministries under hate crime legislation here in Canada… I’m beginning to see how dangerous fundamentalism can be towards many of us, even though I did not experience it in this way.
I think power and control is part of the issue… keeping Haggard out of visibility is a form of damage control – an attempt to minimize the effects of his “struggles” on those who see him in ministry, to minimize the ramifications of his next “fall”, and to deny the fact that he has not changed. If it were to become obvious that he has not changed, then the message of the evangelical church (“change is possible”) will be compromised, and more scandal will result.
As time goes on, the world will realize that more moderate or liberal churches (and even the Roman Catholics, who at least recognize that orientation change is not likely), are better at being honest instead of making sensational claims about change…