Haggard Thoughts Part 2:.
For some reason, the situation with Ted Haggard has got a hold of me. My thoughts seem extra random and incomplete. I'm trying to piece them together, but here's an attempt.
1. Damn this makes me sad. Though I can have my moments of being sentimental, I'm rarely truly empathetic to other people in pain. I'm sick over this situation. The fact that I'm not a big Haggard fan what-so-ever, makes this more confusing to me.
2. Waiting for the info to come is the best policy. Several folks kept wanting to declare verdicts early on his guilt, I'm finding it's best not to rush to such judgments. Waiting might be hard, but withholding judgment is good. Would you come clean if you were confronted by stranger with a camera in your face hours after your darkest secrets are revealed to the world? If I'm honest, there's no way I would. Maybe you are a better person than I am, but I'm gonna lie, hide, conceal and hedge, because that's what I'd been doing for years on that issue.
3. Mr. Haggard seems to be doing the right thing.
4. Where is safest place to go and confess for you? Alone doesn't count. Alone is alone. The kind of darkness Mr. Haggard has been living flourishes when only you know. The fact is, that while the last few days have had to be the most painful days of the Haggard family, Mr. Haggard is likely experiencing freedom like he hasn't felt in years. His secret is out. The skeleton is out of the closet. He is no longer alone. This is good news! Do you or I know that kind of freedom right now?
5. If I'm brutally honest, I'd don't have a place to confess my own personal sin. Maybe that's why I'm feeling a connection to this situation. Though I've never had gay sex (or wanted to), or tried any illegal drug, I have my own sets of circumstances and that connects me to Mr Haggard in powerful ways. I guess I'm simply saying, we're all one decision away from bad decisions that bring this kind of pain. Shoot, it's hard to even use the singular there. I'm one decision away. I can't be the only one. But it's a dangerous place to be.
6. I don't care if this is another reason for "non-christians" to point fingers at christians. That really doesn't matter to me. The church has to figure out a way to make confession a regular rhythm in the body of Christ. Scot McKnight has some good thoughts on this at www.jesuscreed.com
7. The other issue at work here is that there are certain individuals who are more inclined to destructive, risky, addictive and ugly behavior. These are often the folks who are strong leaders who connect with power in healthy and unhealthy ways and who love the adventure of experiencing life and controling it. These are currently the very people whe idealize as the best American Pastors for our culture. The church has to work through this as well.
Can you relate?
For some reason, the situation with Ted Haggard has got a hold of me. My thoughts seem extra random and incomplete. I'm trying to piece them together, but here's an attempt.
1. Damn this makes me sad. Though I can have my moments of being sentimental, I'm rarely truly empathetic to other people in pain. I'm sick over this situation. The fact that I'm not a big Haggard fan what-so-ever, makes this more confusing to me.
2. Waiting for the info to come is the best policy. Several folks kept wanting to declare verdicts early on his guilt, I'm finding it's best not to rush to such judgments. Waiting might be hard, but withholding judgment is good. Would you come clean if you were confronted by stranger with a camera in your face hours after your darkest secrets are revealed to the world? If I'm honest, there's no way I would. Maybe you are a better person than I am, but I'm gonna lie, hide, conceal and hedge, because that's what I'd been doing for years on that issue.
3. Mr. Haggard seems to be doing the right thing.
4. Where is safest place to go and confess for you? Alone doesn't count. Alone is alone. The kind of darkness Mr. Haggard has been living flourishes when only you know. The fact is, that while the last few days have had to be the most painful days of the Haggard family, Mr. Haggard is likely experiencing freedom like he hasn't felt in years. His secret is out. The skeleton is out of the closet. He is no longer alone. This is good news! Do you or I know that kind of freedom right now?
5. If I'm brutally honest, I'd don't have a place to confess my own personal sin. Maybe that's why I'm feeling a connection to this situation. Though I've never had gay sex (or wanted to), or tried any illegal drug, I have my own sets of circumstances and that connects me to Mr Haggard in powerful ways. I guess I'm simply saying, we're all one decision away from bad decisions that bring this kind of pain. Shoot, it's hard to even use the singular there. I'm one decision away. I can't be the only one. But it's a dangerous place to be.
6. I don't care if this is another reason for "non-christians" to point fingers at christians. That really doesn't matter to me. The church has to figure out a way to make confession a regular rhythm in the body of Christ. Scot McKnight has some good thoughts on this at www.jesuscreed.com
7. The other issue at work here is that there are certain individuals who are more inclined to destructive, risky, addictive and ugly behavior. These are often the folks who are strong leaders who connect with power in healthy and unhealthy ways and who love the adventure of experiencing life and controling it. These are currently the very people whe idealize as the best American Pastors for our culture. The church has to work through this as well.
Can you relate?
posted by mark at
12:20 PM
5 Comments:
I have been under a lot of personal conviction lately and this situation with Haggard and reading McKnight's ideas about it has really helped me to re think this a lot. I just got fired from the church I serve and I am really looking to what I need to do now having served for so many years in youth ministry. I really don't think it is safe for most church leaders to be real and authentic in their churches. When I told the youth I was leaving, several of them felt betrayed because the didn't know that I was having a hard time. Yet, if I told them about my struggles, it would have been seen as inappropriate. So I'm not sure how leaders are supposed to deal with personal sin in a healthy way. There is a great book I have been reading that has some points that really speak to this called the Emotionally Healthy Church. Let me know if you figure it out.
Where do I go for Confession? To my Priest. I know Protestants don't have that, and I think it is something valuable that was lost. I have done things that I am very ashamed of. Going to someone else and Confessing that before him and God changes the whole dynamic. You can't hide any longer, and Penance requires you to change. It can be a powerful tool for personal spiritual growth.
I'm wholeheartedly with you on this. While being a flaming evangelical, I'm not much into the evangelical movement itself, so I actually had no idea who Ted Haggard was before this event. But I think that there is something more needed than just making "confession a regular rhythm in the body of Christ". The problem is that if it is too regular, people will become involved in just confessing "ordinary" sins. Think about it. If we are in a time of confession together, and someone on my left confesses that they used a swear word yesterday, and someone on my right confessed that they gossipped about someone, would I in the middle be ready in that situation to confess that I participated in a gang-rape the night before (note to audience -- I haven't -- just a hypothetical)?
I'm not saying I have any good ideas at this moment on what _would_ be a good way to encourage confession sooner rather than later, but just that whether or not there are different levels of sin, there are certainly different levels of guilt, and the way confession happens within a church needs to take that into account.
I've been fascinated by how quickly I've watched people distance themselves from Haggard and this whole situation. Several blogs this week have been more than ready to point out that Haggard doesn't represent all of Christianity. I've heard the phrase, "black eye" several times in reference to what Haggard has done to the reputation of the church. Instead of running away from this story, maybe we should be embracing it. After all, this is our story. Ted Haggard is not Fred Phelps. Rather, he is a follower of Jesus who is now dealing with the ugly reality of sin in it's full power. So rather than running to all of our friends and telling them that, "real Christians aren't this way", let's own up to our humanity. This authenic act might just show those around us that we all need the rescue that is found in Jesus.
The other point of interest to me is on the accountability side of things. I read this week that Haggard had a four person accountability team in place before this happened. These people we're watching his life to protect him, and they never saw this coming. The reality is, all of the accountability in the world won't protect me if I don't let it. You are very right when you talk about the rhythm of confession. What we really need is full disclosure with someone. Haggard talked about how he had long seasons of victory followed by failure. What if, during those periods of victory, he had chosen to tell someone that he was tempted by that kind of sin? Maybe he did - I don't know. If he had disclosed, would his accountability team have been able to steer him away from getting a hotel room in Denver to write? Would someone have been able to help him avoid this? Maybe that kind of disclosure would have cost him his job - the risks of disclosure have certainly been my personal hold up. But losing your job isn't comparable to what his family is going through now. Having been a youth pastor for the last decade - I'm just so saddened each time I see this happen to another pastor - friend or public figure. We've got to figure out how to rethink accountability.
Good thoughts. I tried to share some of these same power personality thoughts with some other youth pastors in my area and all they could say was, "He shouldn't have done it. God calls leaders to higher standards." The lack of sympathy and wholistic understanding of the places that the church (especially the more conservative branches)puts its leaders in is shocking. Why is the church so unwilling to acknowledge its own complicity in the fall of someone like Haggard?
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