What’s going on in Colorado’s Evangelical community? First Ted Haggard was forced to step down in disgrace, and now for the second time in as many months a prominent conservative Christian leader is embroiled in a gay sex scandal. This time it’s Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel, who admitted to his congregation, in a taped confession that he has had sexual relations with other men.
Unlike Haggard, Barnes has limited political connections and has stayed out of Colorado’s gay marriage debate, although he has preached that God views homosexuality as a sin. During his tearful confession, the 54-year-old acknowledged struggling with his identity since childhood and being racked with self-loathing because of his “firm moral family.” Despite being unable to escape himself, even after being reborn, Barnes claimed he could not accept that people were “born that way.” But if nature did not make him gay, does that mean his strict religious upbringing is the root cause of his lifetime of guilt?
Most folks aren’t especially tweaked when they learn a friend or relative is gay — unless they’re strung out on one or another religion that says you’re a sinner. Phew!
The claim by Ted Haggard that he had tried unsuccessfully to treat himself for a “repulsive and dark” part of his life, reflects a concept espoused by many religious conservatives, and disputed by many mental health experts.
“Haggard is Exhibit A of how people can’t change their sexual orientation,” said Wayne Besen, a gay-rights activist and author. “With all that he had to lose — a wife, children, a huge church — he had to be who he was in the end. He couldn’t pray away the gay.”
Haggard did not specify how he had sought help or describe the healing-and-restoration program he vows to pursue now — but did say he deserved to be “disciplined and corrected.”
Clinton Anderson, director of the American Psychological Association’s Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office, found Haggard’s statement dismaying.
“There’s a profound sadness that someone should be saddled culturally with such a negative attitude toward a part of themselves,” Anderson said. “From our vantage point as psychologists, his self-repulsion is not necessary, it’s not justified.”
It’s been decades since scientific study led psychology away from considering homosexuality as “deviant”. Cultural lag is one thing. Clinging to foolish notions and harmful practices on the basis of religious ideology is absurd.
Getting back to Paul Barnes… It’s the church organization that is at fault.
First, the Bible doesn’t have an exclusive “pastor” position. This position started with Emperor Constantine who needed government agents to make sure the peons in “Christian” Rome went to church. He ‘ordained’ them “priests.” Christians were meant to be part of the body, not in a lonely, unaccountable position above it.
Second, There’s a lot of people who have emotional problems who mistakenly think that maybe if they went to seminary they would get really holy and their emotional problems would go away. Really. But the way out of those problems is in the body, confessing our sins to one another and praying for each other that we may be healed.
Third, the average church doesn’t understand that occultists and witches can and do affect Christians. Jesus meant it when he told us to cast out demons. I have seen the votes of jury trials and conventions be swayed in this way. Certainly a homosexual love spell on a pastor is not beneath the witches. I know about all this because it is part of my ministry to stop it and clean up the aftermath if I’m too late.
Fourth, the average church has a habit of shooting their wounded. That makes confession of sin a dangerous activity. I like the way the church pulled around Haggard to minister to him and encourage him. That is abnormal, though.
Small groups best reflect what the New Testament church was all about. That’s where koinonia can finally become agape.
Brenden, Woktiny, solomonrex,
EVERYONE on the face of this earth is different. There is no master mold, or exacting specifications, to which homo sapiens sapiens are formed.
ALL people are complex biological machines whose multitude of functions and abilities rely on chemicals and compounds extracted from what we eat and breathe. Like any machine, some run better or worse than others, and it’s only by general acceptance of a lower and upper level of variance that we as people can define normal.
For example, people who are intelligent, content, and secure don’t murder someone while in that state of mind. Chemistry and only chemistry dictates what a person is capable of. The chemistry of DNA (physical), and the chemistry of the mind and body all vary from individual to individual. When the chemistry is within “normal” tolerances, people generally can maintain physical control, good judgment, and an even temper.
I guarantee that you are not even close to being mentally or physically perfect. Your discrimination and intolerance of homosexuality is no more reasonable than a intolerance and discrimination of baldness, being born with male and female sexual organs, or social phobias.
As for murderers, they fall outside what is acceptable and safe for society for obvious logical reasons. There has to be a reasonable point where risk outweighs acceptance. Your choice of rape or murder as comparison to such an innocuous condition as homosexuality only illustrates your own logic deficit.
#29, “If ‘Sexual polarity is not a choice’ then how do people change their sexual polarity?”
They don’t. Simply because there is no evidence that sexual orientation is a choice. And it is not something that can necessarily be changed. Most people deny it when their orientation is counter to society’s expectations. This denial may be so strong as to be a leading cause of young gays having the highest rate of suicide among their age group.
Your single example does not make a compelling case to classify millions of people and is highly unscientific. Who says she wasn’t in denial all that time?
29,
If you are referring to transsexuals, they are people who feel different on the inside and change their outsides to reflect their identity. They didn’t change their sexual orientation; in fact they took pains to conform to it.
Internal sexual orientation is different from the equipment you are born with.
#2,8 — Logical extension. Just accept rapists and the problems go away. Just accept murder and the problems go away.
What matchbooks are you guys reading for advice?
Oh and regarding ALL the comments: CRIPES!
#39
Thanks JCD. That was helpful 😉
#30 meetsy, at the risk of making you blush, that was a great piece. Just don’t go raising the bar too high 😉
#37, I’m sorry if my personal experience does not follow the scientific method, I can prove nothing, but I cannot ignore what I have seen.
No one is denying what you’ve seen actually happened. It fits right in with what everyone is saying. Your friends obviously are near the center of the “gay scale” and can go either way. Potentially they could have been born more gay or less gay depending on their chemical/physical makeup and what you saw would have never happened.
Why is it that the most simple of genetic principles escapes people so thoroughly? Of course there are people who switch back and forth, just as there are people who are intermediate in height between 6’6″ and 4’10”. Genetics, particularly the genetics of intra-species physical characteristics and behavior, are -always-influenced by multiple genes. Thus, though there is polarity, the shape of things is more like a bell curve: some cannot choose to be hetero or homosexual, while middle phenotypes can choose. But the fact remains, that -some- cannot choose, and thus judging people on this trait at all seems kind of silly. To those that say “Well, what about rapists?” remember; you should judge others by a standard you can apply to all, even yourself. Drawing the line at consent seems sensible, lest someone come after straight people for blowjobs (Does not propagate the species!) next.
You know what’s dissapoiting? These guys drive their big n’ fancy cars to pick up men and when things are set and ready they’re on all 4s and offering their asses.
“Cultural lag is one thing. Clinging to foolish notions and harmful practices on the basis of religious ideology is absurd.”
So you and a handful of politically correct shrinks have discovered all the answers over thousands of years of historical cultural norm.
Now that is funny. Stick to tech stuff where you are more qualified Dvorak
39. John, use an alias and then you too can express an opinion beyond “cripes.”
RBG
#45, Jeff, the “thousands of years of historical cultural norm” you refer to eliminated almost all religious detractors by murdering them.
Christianity was established by force and flourished from murder and larceny.