Legends of the fall...

I'm suspicious of the timing, of course, but the news of the possible involvement of Rev. Ted Haggard, pastor of a large evangelical church in Colorado and a leader in the National Association of Evangelicals, with a male prostitute has been front and center in the news.

The media love this stuff and a lot of readers/listeners/watchers do as well. If a prominent person seeking to speak out on moral issues falls (and there is no final word yet on whether or to what extent this may have happened) it allows people to justify themselves and avoid answering the questions posed by those speaking out about the moral decay of our culture. If every accusation provided to date is 100% true how would that affect the truth of the problems associated with the "do everyone you want" sexual mores of this society? Would it make the disease and death go away? Would the broken homes vanish? Would it mean that somehow the attitgude and actions which are making this all a reality are now okay? Or would it mean that one more person, one more family, and a whole congregation are added to the long and growing list of those broken by the sexual sickness of our times and, in effect, prove the point at a terrible cost?

Of course those of us who are serving in ministry are painfully aware of the nature of these times. We bathe in the same cultural waters as everyone else and wearing a collar is hardly a protection from the darkness. We are humans and we make mistakes, sometimes terrible ones. Our hearts are broken when we see one of us fall and we pray to God that it won't happen to us and sometimes just hang on by our fingernails in the face of it all. We know that the standards in these things are at a different level for us and a plumber or business man accused of seeking out gay sex wouldn't even merit a single line of newspaper copy while the mere innuendo of clergy scandal ends up above the fold on the front page. We know there are people who delight in exposing us and relish the idea of tripping us up. And its all complicated by the reality that deep inside, behind the faces we present on Sunday morning, are the common struggles of all Christians against the darts of the Evil One and the power of our own brokenness.

My prayers go out to Pastor Haggard, his family, and his parish, and doubly so if these accusations are in fact not a political stunt and have some merit. I hope yours do too because there will be suffering either way and perhaps a long road home if they are true. How we treat this man, this pastor, in the coming months will reveal the reality of who we are and the Gospel we proclaim. How we treat his accuser will as well.