As part of a severance package that will pay Haggard through 2007, Haggard agreed not only to leave town but to refrain from discussing the scandal publicly. He did not return messages Wednesday. Haggard's most recent annual salary was about $138,000, benefits excluded.Christianity, Judaism and Islam all claim to have messages from God. Of course, God is a funny character, who really needs us (for some strange reason) to convince each other that It exists. So when the "really special" ones among us, prophets and such, turn out to be "really fu^*&ng nasty", it raises a few question marks around the issue of whether the message was tainted by the messenger.
His former congregation has felt the sting of the scandal. Since Haggard's fall, attendance has fallen 20 percent and giving has dropped 10 percent, said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor. As a result of the decline, the church laid off 44 employees, or 12 percent of its work force. [emphasis mine]
For instance, imagine that we found incontrovertible evidence that St. Paul used to rape children, even during his "vessel of truth" days. Do you really think that the faith people have in his writings as being inerrant would remain strong? Not so much.
Despite Christian attempts to convince us that their faith is never (mis)placed in a person, we all know better: the 'bibbal and the whole damn religion were written and constructed by people.
Lots of Christians claim that apostatasy can be blamed on fallen leaders. Perhaps in some cases it can. But in the same breath, they say contradictory and stupid things that insult the veracity of the ex-believer's once-genuine faith. They can't admit that some people see through the sham, facilitated by fallen heroes. Instead, they want to make it the apostate's fault for being let-down or, worse, 'just' an excuse.
Prof. Ruth Tucker lists those 5 myths concerning believers who leave the faith:
1) "They are angry and rebellious."I know I've certainly been accused of leaving Christianity due to numbers 1, 4 and 5. I've also heard all five of these myths about apostates. I do find it rather humorous when people think that atheism is necessary for #4 -- as an excuse -- they tell me I'm an atheist so I can "do what I want", or something of the sort. The funniest thing about that is that one can believe in God and do what one wants.
2) "They can be argued back into faith."
3) "Doubters can find help at Christian colleges and seminaries."
4) "They abandon their faith so that they can go out and sin freely."
5) "They were never sincere Christians to begin with."
There are Hedonist Christians, liberal Christians, and Evangelicals are nabbed all the time in sex scandals, child porn cases, as closeted homosexuals, etc. So is it necessary to abandon ones faith in order to pursue sin/pleasure? No. Certainly you could argue whether these people truly believe, but there is simply no way to prove it one way or the other.
Just ask Phillip Distasio, leader of Arcadian Fields Ministries, who was charged with sexually abusing 9 disabled boys. Just ask the Rev. Daniel Schulte, 53, of Chicago, IL, who was recently convicted for child porn. Just ask the Baptist minister Rev. Eugene Paul White, 71, recently sentenced to 180 years to life in prison for 12 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under 14, convicted of molesting his 4 adopted foster daughters. Just ask Shawn Davies, 33, of Scott County, KY. Shawn is charged with 9 counts of 2nd-degree statutory sodomy, 7 counts of furnishing pornographic materials to minors, 5 counts of use of a child in a sexual performance, 2 counts of endangering the welfare of a minor, and 4 other charges...one of the sodomies took place with a boy under 14 at a church youth lock-in, where he was the youth minister, at First Baptist Church in Greenwood, KY...
Need I go on? Any of you who subscribe to Freethought Today know of their "Black Collar Crime Blotter" section, which every month is [sadly] filled with these exact same clergy-related crime stories.
In other words, if #4 were true, it would not be necessary to "abandon faith", I could still go to church every Sunday, pray (or not), read the Bible (or not), and repent of my sinful ways (or not). I'm sure that if you asked these fellows, they surely wouldn't tell you they were atheists. If I wanted to be like them, I could keep both my unbelief and my sins secret, couldn't I?
So at the end of the day, Christians want to call each other a great "man of God," yet prevent from associating the substance of the message with the messenger, yet at the same time blame apostates who stop thinking that any "special people" have an inside line to Jeebus, and accuse them of using excuses and/or being angry.
They don't see that the #4 above is destroyed by people like Ted Haggard -- they show us that there is no rational cause to abandon one's faith, or at least pretenses thereof, if all that one wants is a little sin on the side.
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