Haggard Scandal

That is not so. The Christian objection to homosexuality or to anything the Bible calls sin has nothing whatever to do with whether or not the Christian has committed it him or herself. Sin is sin no matter who commits it, and in general Christians are quite ready to confess our sins, the same sins the Bible condemns, that we are always warning everybody else about. There may certainly be some self-righteous among us, but in general I don't think that's true at all. (In fact the self righteous indignation factor at this site is heavily on the evo and atheist side). I have a pretty extensive record of sin myself, but since my eyes have been opened I see where that leads, and I see that a world founded on the permissive immorality I once lived by is doomed to destruction. God saved me out of it, though I still fall into old habits all too easily, and I'd like to see Him save others out of it, and I'd like to see us get smart and refuse to ratify public policies that are only going to bring our society down in flames.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But on what basis did you "think better of it?" Were you a Christian at the time?I inhaled and swallowed all the illegal dope that came my way, but fortunately it didn't agree with me. Three increasingly strong LSD trips and I wasn't having any more of THAT. Marijuana gives me nausea. I guess it cures it for some, to me it does the opposite. By the time I got through all that I wasn't even going to *think* about cocaine. But I wasn't a Christian so I made no effort to avoid temptation. Now I work hard against temptation, and still sometimes it trips me up.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I heard mushrooms give some a really bad case of nausea, but in any case nobody offered any and I didn't go out of my way to find them.I can brag about having met Timothy Leary though maybe. I know he took all that stuff. An affable Irishman Tim, wearing beads and on his sixth or seventh "wife" at the time. My ex had been mentored by him in the psych dept at Cal. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Drugs never got a strong enough hold on me to be anything that trips me up any more, fortunately, but yes, if we live long enough before God grabs us to rack up a lengthy roster of any kind of sin, it's not easy to get it out of your system, it's always lying in wait.

You just pick them growing in the grass of the golf course over there? No nausea though? Yes, golf clubs like rubber. Walls made of everflowing liquid, floors that won't stay flat, that ripple into waves, mound up and dip down into wells, that you have to crawl across because you can't stand up on them, air that is really thick multicolored gelatin that swirls around anything moving through it, in which a liquid forming-and-reforming face might appear without its body, inquiring as to your state of mind, to which you can only inanely and insanely laugh, and then disappear again into the colors, light bulbs that shoot crystalline light patterns in all directions, quite beautiful though, somebody's heart sitting on a windowsill beating away and then suddenly exploding, everything looking pink and green for days, and neon signs burning an unearthly electric blue for years afterward.

I don't think you know what the word means.

I didn't even start to think about God during the LSD years, not for oh 16 to 18 years after that, many years removed from all that sixties stuff. Not that you care. Facts don't interest you if you think you can hang an accusation on some admission or other. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Cause he sinned in that way too. Sin generally leads to hiding the sin. It's our past sins we freely confess, and sometimes by God's grace we can confess the recent ones too, but the flesh wants to hide it all.The guy fell hard and he got caught and he's now defrocked. God having mercy on him really I think, since if he'd gotten away with it he might never get back to God. This way he has a chance.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Fact is I was, but weird thing is I didn't know it. When I finally found God I just thought I'd discovered something amazingly great, I didn't know I NEEDED Him, not right away.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You're completely right about Haggard. It's just that the feeding frenzy of the oh-so-pure Pharisaical atheists among us prompts me to wallow in the fact of Christians being sinners. There is nothing self-righteous about preaching against sin, whether one has committed a particular sin or not that one preaches against. I'm also not sure that it's right to call it hypocrisy either to preach against a sin he himself fell into, especially if it was a first-time fall. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are one lousy psychoanalyst. I wasn't dissatisfied with myself for any of my sins UNTIL I encountered God. I was not at ALL attracted to a "strict moral code" even then. I simply had to acknowledge in the end that God's Law held me in condemnation for things I'd indulged in and excused all my life. Having one's past expunged from the records doesn't count in THIS life I hope you know. Our sins can be paraded before us here and now at any time. It's only in eternity, in God's eyes that they are expunged. Since you don't believe in God I doubt you can imagine the attraction of THAT idea as you claim. That's the point. We can't be self-righteous because we know where we've been. I'm sure most of the posters at EvC have lived a more upright life than I have. But you don't seem to be able to read people at all. NOBODY has been "wagging any fingers." We tell you what God's law says, for your own good. Your morally careful life is not going to save you. God's windmills grind exceeding fine and sin is something we all habitually commit in our hearts all the time. It's not just the gross stuff we will be judged on.

You are right. Drugs and sex, some sex anyway, but drugs for sure, are just hijinks compared to some sins. I don't think I did anything admirable by talking about my drug experience. It's easy to talk about that. In fact I almost bragged about it. I know it was sin but I don't feel the offense of it the way I feel some other things in my life, the really shameful things, that I'm not prepared to talk about here. I appreciate your confession a lot more than mine.

OK he's a hypocrite. So am I.

duplicateEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well I haven't believed the story of the three years, but if it's true then I have to agree that that is certainly hypocrisy. He should have stepped down from the pulpit long ago.