Go tell it on the mountain, or : Oops, they did it again!

[laughingwillow]

And da plot thickens, eh?

Sounds like fallen holy-dude #2 caught the gay virus early on.

Hopefully, evangelical scientists will soon develop a vaccine to be given in-vitro, eliminating the possibility that newborns will be subjected to even one unprotected whiff of the gay-infested air polluting our planet...

lw

[TooStonedToType]

That would be nice, but it can't be done. Man has no vaccine for Satan.  See many of these otherwise straight, law-abidding, ministers are attacked by demonic forces, some as early as age five, temping them with such meth-fueled, homosexual pleasures, that virtually no man can resisit - Ummm - wait - I'm confused here.

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Preachers found logic in denial
Article Last Updated:12/16/2006 11:29:00 PM MST

The Rev. Paul Barnes and the Rev. Ted Haggard have asked their legions of devout followers to pray for them. The preachers have admitted to homosexual behavior, something that for years they railed quite lucratively against by calling it a sin and an abomination.

"I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy. ... I can't tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away," Barnes said in a videotaped statement to the Grace Chapel congregation in Douglas County last week.

"There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life," Haggard wrote in a letter to the 14,000 members of his New Life Church in Colorado Springs last month.

In the wake of their reluctant public confessions, the impulse to ridicule these guys as venal hypocrites is irresistible.

In fact, Haggard's massage buddy, Mike Jones, and his publisher already are taking that impulse to the bank.

But as with former Rep. Mark Foley, who sponsored legislation to crack down on child predators on the Internet while he allegedly was sending salacious e-mails to Capitol Hill pages, there's more to the story of the outright duplicity of the pious ministers than just lurid material for book deals.

What we have here, according to the Rev. Kevin Maly, the openly gay pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Denver, is a rare opportunity to see how some people try to cope with being gay and how they hurt so many people along the way.

He calls it "a teachable moment."

Homosexual ministers preaching that homosexuality is evil is not evidence of their rank opportunism or some kind of vacuous self-loathing, he said.

It's a desperate attempt at self-control.

"It really is a gestalt," he said.

"One of the functions of human language is regulation and control. There are people - and it may not be conscious for them - who are trying to control something within themselves by speaking out against it."

Ultimately, despite heterosexual marriages and preaching the message that homosexuality is wrong, they lost control.

"Sexuality is irrepressible," Maly said. No amount of denial or pretending can change things.

Sure, these guys were living a lie, but in their tortured psyches, becoming prominent anti-gay preachers made perfect sense.
It was a way to remind themselves not to act gay.

While evangelicals may differ about whether being a homosexual is a choice or a biological imperative, they generally subscribe to the belief that it's homosexual acts that are evil.

So the solution is to act straight and to condemn those who don't.
It's also no surprise to Maly that Haggard and Barnes chose the religious life instead of, say, law or business. Churches are safe havens for the exiled, he said, at least theoretically.

"Religious traditions are at their best when they are about bringing in those who have been shoved to the edges of society," he said.
All that implies that churches are inherently compassionate, welcoming places.

So it seems like two beloved evangelical leaders coming out of the closet would be such a dramatic turning point that reconsideration of the whole abomination thing logically would follow.

"One could only hope," Maly said.
He's not optimistic.

"If you look at the language used by Haggard and Barnes, they still view their same-sex attractions as evil," he said. "There's still this mistaken belief that one can change his sexuality if only one prays hard enough.

"I think what both of these guys are saying is, 'We were right all along, we just didn't believe hard enough."'

So the teachable moment may be lost, at least on the evangelical community.

Because while the two preachers have admitted to homosexual behavior, they're still dissembling as fast as they can.

They still can't embrace who they are.

[TooStonedToType]

Another one bites the dust.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/10 ... etail.html
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Pastor At Haggard's Church Resigns Over Sexual Misconduct

Christopher Beard Worked With Young Adults

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A pastor who worked with young adults at New Life Church has resigned after admitting sexual misconduct and other mistakes just weeks after former church leader Ted Haggard stepped down over sexual immorality, church officials said.
Christopher Beard, who headed the TwentyFourSeven ministry that taught leadership skills to young adults, resigned Friday after admitting sexual misconduct and other mistakes, said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor at the 14,000-member church.

Brendle said Beard told church officials about "a series of decisions displaying poor judgment, including one incident of sexual misconduct several years ago." The church said in a statement that the misconduct was with another unmarried adult several years ago. Beard, who worked with the church for nine years, has since married.

The resignation was reported Monday by The Denver Post and The Gazette in Colorado Springs. Brendle did not immediately return a call Monday from The Associated Press, and a residential phone number listed in Beard's name was disconnected.
According to the Church Web site, Beard has a business degree from Oral Roberts University and a Masters in Christian Counseling. Beard also worked at one of the nation's leading mental institutions as a psychotherapist before coming to New Life Church and TwentyFourSeven. Beard was also the Missions Pastor of New Life Church, and has led mission trips to 53 countries.
His photo and bio were removed from the Web site by Monday.

Church leadership asked its outside Board of Overseers to examine the "spiritual character" of the 200 staff members after Haggard resigned last month from the church and as president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Haggard acknowledged he paid Mike Jones, of Denver, for a massage and for methamphetamine, but he said he did not have sex with him and did not use the drug. Jones has said Haggard paid him regularly for sex. Haggard and his wife, Gayle Haggard, are undergoing three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed center in Arizona.

Brendle said Beard discussed his misconduct during a meeting with the Board of Overseers, which is made up of four pastors from other congregations.
"We recognize there will be increased scrutiny of our church in the wake of the scandal," Brendle said. "We welcome that process in order to reinforce the high standard of personal integrity and morality that has characterized New Life's employees for 22 years."

The Rev. Ross Parsley, New Life's acting senior pastor, told congregants on Sunday that there would be changes in the coming weeks as a result of the overseers' investigation to restore integrity.
"The community deserves it and God demands it," Parsley said.

Beard was reprimanded by the church in 2002, when police came to break up a TwentyFourSeven training exercise he led in the church's parking lot involving fake assault rifles.

[laughingwillow]

So, I'm guessing fallen holy-dude #3 has admitted to gay encounters before  entering a Heterosexual Union in the Eyes of God. I doubt garden variety hetero-lust and fornication while single with a consenting unattached person of the opposite gender would knock the guy so far from grace so quickly...

I wouldn't want my children learning about spirituality and God from these Hypocrites-Whom-Art-in-Vogue....

lw

[TooStonedToType]

I was thinking the same thing LW.

"I wouldn't want my children learning about spirituality and God from these Hypocrites-Whom-Art-in-Vogue.... "

Nor firearm training.  WTF?

"Beard was reprimanded by the church in 2002, when police came to break up a TwentyFourSeven training exercise he led in the church's parking lot involving fake assault rifles."

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See:  Keep your jesus off my penis and I'll keep my penis off of you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2AqGh8-el0