Haggard Scandal

The Golden Rule is meant as a maxim, it doesn't need any introduction or any explanation because He has imparted self-evident truths within us. In order for us to understand the Golden Rule we have to first have a universal understanding. Everyone wants to be treated well, right? That's the axiom. Jesus wants us to treat others in the exact manner we would like to be treated. There has to be some universal concept of what is acceptable. Otherwise, you might walk up to someone and kick them in the face, only to explain, "That's how I like to be treated. I'm just following the Golden Rule."

---

"The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God." -2^nd Corinthians 10:4-5

Christians have no magic shield of protection against sin. It takes dedicated practice of prayer and often it takes the help of other Christians to keep you straight. The fact is that Christians are more heavily targeted by the demonic hordes than anybody else is, always trying to get us off track, and they've studied our weak areas and know exactly what buttons to push, what lures to dangle in front of us, and being human, if we're not on the watch day and night as Jesus says to be, we can easily fall.In the case of Ted Haggard, he was obviously a major major target of not only the demonic hordes but the human beings who hate Christianity, the liberals who are thrilled that an evangelical leader was felled right before a major election, now gloating and sneering and thumping their chests.How such Christian leaders get themselves into such totally unprotected positions is the question. They should be aware of what they are up against more than the rest of us, and have a cadre of spiritual bodyguards watching them and praying for them all the time. Billy Graham seems always to have had his spiritual guard up. I have to admire him for that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No problem. Some people view absolutism :vs: relativism as being in perpetual stalemate. But I think that one argument effectively dismantles the entirely relativist argument. I certainly can't argue that point.

---

"The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God." -2^nd Corinthians 10:4-5

A most excellent analysis indeed. But it is incomplete...obedience to morals also gives us a description of how the universe does work. It is proof! We observe gravity, and we observe morality in practice.Furthermore, since we do not obey perfectly, the universe does not work perfectly.There is a great quote to illustrate this, but if I take the time to look for it, I may be divorced by the time I do. So in the name of morality, I had better let it go.Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

...bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

Rob writes: I think gravity is independent of morality. If Haggard had behaved differently, would that make gravity work better?

No it doesn't. The sun rose and set the same in Nazi Germany as it does in smalltown USA. People breathe, eat, etc. the same in a gulag as they do in the Vatican.Even you should understand that one's moral behaviour does not determine one's outcome on earth. If it's C. S. Lewis, don't waste your time. Put your thoughts in your own words.

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

That sounds like a good way to get yourself kicked in the face, or worse. If that's what you really want, then by all means, start kicking faces.But if you don't, then you're not being honest. You aren't treating people as you want to be treated, because you don't want to be kicked in the face. So you aren't actually following the golden rule at all.It's a good rule because it's largely self-enforcing. Being an immoral bastard to people generally results in some form of consequence that prevents you from being a bastard in the future. It's hard to kick faces, for instance, when a mob of big burly guys shows up and breaks both of your legs.

No.He was a major target of people who thought that two adults, in love, should be able to marry, and that the configuration of their genitals had no bearing on whether or not that should be allowed to happen.Why was he a target to those people? Because he took it upon himself, with no provocation whatsoever, to antagonize those people to the greatest extent possible.What we're seeing is one more example of the almost axiomatic fact that evangelical leaders who froth at the mouth to "protect traditional marriage" (whatever the hell that means) are almost always self-hating homosexuals who simply don't feel like they can emerge from the closet without the destruction of everything they hold dear.Never mind, of course, that it's the closeting and the homo-bashing that make that the case in the first place. If they could simply make peace with themselves and the reality of their situation, like normal homosexuals do, they would see what Andrew Sullivan calls "the deep wound of the closet."To the extent that a linchpin of the gay-bashing movement has been rendered powerless, the news is good. But to the extent that an environment of homo-hating bigotry drove him into the closet and to the abuse of drugs, and has inflicted deep wounds on his wife and family, the man should be pitied. He's got no one to blame but himself - not for being gay, but for being so determined to be straight and to enforce ostracism of homosexuals that he made a very simple situation about a thousand times worse than it had to be, for himself, his family, and even the nation. It's not a hard question. Whenever someone is elevated as the central figure in a cult of personality, as Haggard was, it becomes very, very easy to believe the rhetoric people are saying about you - you're better than everybody else, you're more holy, you're more righteous. You begin to be under the impression that you can't possibly do wrong, and whatever you want to do must be right. How could it not? Why would God elevate someone who wanted to do bad things?Haggard was elevated beyond the traditional structures of accountability. Christians tend to do that to their leaders. (See Bush et al.)

Your a genius!

Only by the lax standards of the US Born in the US, went to school in the US, went to college in the US, got a lot of drugs in Mexico etc. etc.Sounds like a full blooded Yank to me!According to Wiki he had an Irish-American father - they don't specify if his father was actually Irish or if he just had Irish ancestry.

---

Oops! Wrong Planet

I said: And you replied: What I was trying to show, and did so (but only in my own words) was that when morality is obeyed, what we get is a demonstration (which you said morality cannot give) of how the universe works in the arena of relationships (which is only one arena of law within the universe). I did not intend to say that morality would determine the laws of physics. But that as the laws of physics demonstrate how the universe should work in terms of physics, the laws of morality demonstrate how the universe works in terms of relationships.However, if a man sins and disturbs his environment with selfish ambition as you and I do... then it appears our sin will affect the sun rising some time in the future as well. Such a scene cannot be corrected without destroying the defective cause of the problem. I don't think we can fully appriciate how much impact our sins actually have on the universe at large. And I think we underestimate the patience and mercy of God. He is within the laws of justice to destroy us now. But unlike us, he takes an eye for an eye. Human beings generally take a limb for an eye, or worse.You also said:I prefer to give the logical argument (in my own words) and then the dramatic illustration, so that we can discuss the issue meaningfully. That way I can show that I not only understand the argument, but that others do as well. And it leaves the recipient with much less room to nakedly attempt to avoid the subject.A lot of this stuff isn't found by thinking so much as you think Ringo. Thinking is what enables us to deny certain 'real' stuff (like morality) with more and more magical manuevering.It's like the laws of physics... If we think without logic, we can be led all over the ballpark. But in logically searching for reality, we learn the thoughts of reality as we discover it, and come to understand things like the 2nd law of thermodynamics. And though I shouldn't have to say it... Things can only be discovered if they already exist. We can't change what we've discovered. That would be the opposite, and is called a cover-up. The same applies to morality and it appears that Mr. Haggard understands what I mean."The more lucidly we think, the more we are cut off: the more deeply we enter into reality, the less we can think."
(C.S. Lewis Myth Became Fact, World Dominion)

---

"God must know, better than anyone, how unfulfilling it is to be right, until it can be shared, with a community willing to accept it, and enjoy the glory of it."(Rob Lockett)

I'm not sure I understand the question. You must know the story of David, Bathsheba, and Uriah? I've already revealed more than a gentleman should--the denouement has little bearing on the intent, whether by Christ's lights or mine. Fortunately, the intended cuckold, unlike the Hittite, survived his military service. I apologized at length soon after. We soon drifted apart.A betrayed friendship is like lost innocence; you can regret and repent, and they can accept and forgive, but things are never quite the same.Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given.

---

Drinking when we are not thirsty and making love at any time, madam, is all that distinguishes us from the other animals.-Pierre De Beaumarchais (1732-1799) Save lives! Click here!
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!
---------------------------------------

Thanks, Faith. I find my appetite for the unvarnished has grown since Robin's death.It seems the loss of each friend and loved one has removed another layer of artifice, and now, at last, just like when I was a child, what I most care about is the truth."Tell the truth and shame the Devil," my grandfather liked to say. I understand that better now.

This aspect of it never ceases to amaze me. It's almost like they are drawn to fight against something they recognise is within themselves. You almost wonder if they think that if they can 'destroy' homosexuality in the wider world it will solve their internal problems. Some psychiatrist should write a book about it.From what I knew of Haggard before this scandal - which wasn't much - I thought he was a somewhat sinister and scary individual.Despite that, and the fact I think he is the architect of his own problems, I can't help but feel sorry for him. Just how screwed up must you be to rail so fiercely against something to thousands and thousands of people when you yourself are secretly doing it? It can't have been good for his mental health - particularly if it was happening for any length of time.

---

Oops! Wrong Planet