Question Everything

Ted Haggard is in some deep water. After allegations from a masseuse of drug purchases and extramarital sex, Haggard was fired from his church on Friday. As of this writing, his wife is standing beside him.

Of course, that makes this crack from Mark Driscoll cut all the worse:

It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness.

We, as christian bloggers, have a responsibility to remember that more than the ‘flock’ are reading your blog. How do you think the secular world saw this statement? Yeah, he clarified after that statement that only Haggard was responsible for his sin, but why include this if you don’t think it’s a factor?

Here’s some comments from unbelievers on this statement:

1. Those fundies never fail to amaze me with something new everyday…to fill me with disgust at their close-minded, stupid, bigoted, hateful views. The US should declare war on our own hatemongering fundie terrorists before they can wreak more damage on this country.

2. Only a fundamentalist Christian could come up with such a convoluted excuse as “My fat ugly wife didn’t like sex and wouldn’t **** ** **** or ** **** so I became a gay drug addict”.

3. these right wing religious wackos are priceless. The only people more sickening than their leaders are the morons who go worship them every Sunday, instead of God! I’m sure Pastor Haggard wil be entering rehab any day now. Will it be drugs, liquor or sexual addiction.

4. Beyond that, as a woman, I wouldn’t go NEAR Mark Driscoll. Doesn’t he know that when he blames the wife for the husband’s sins that that will give some nut in the congregation an excuse to bash her around or verbally abuse her if she doesn’t shape up and keep him from prostitutes? This isn’t only dumb talk, it can be dangerous..religious furvor can be a very dangerous thing.

5. dumb dumb sheep afraid to think for themselves – take a 1200 yr old book literally.

6. Ted Haggard’s disgrace is that he turned away from the teachings of Christ. We all know that Jesus’ primary concerns were gay marriage and abortion. The meek shall inherit the earth? Afterthought. Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven? Misquote. Blessed are the peacemakers? Not when there’s Middle Eastern oil at stake. When Haggard’s former evangelical friends castigate him for his sins, they will dountless omit the only one of which he was guilty. Hypocracy.

7. Church is a business, plain and simple. The more members, the more money. The more attractive, (Christ-like, perfect, ideal), a church and its members appear to outsiders, the more members it will attain and retain. Mrs. Haggard and and the other long-suffering wives of closeted gay pastors (and that has to be half, the other half being pedophiles

8. It seems as if the pastor is suffering from the Adam syndrome, “That woman you gave me.” Since he likes to quote Scriptures, here is one especially for him: Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thou fountains be blessed: and rejoice with the WIFE of thy youth. LET HER BE AS THE LOVING HIN AND PLEASANT ROE; LET HER BREAST SATISY THEE AT ALL TIMES; AND BE THOU RAVISHED ALWAYS WITH HER LOVE,” Proverbs 6: 15, 18, 19. When God sent Samuel to annnoint a King from Jessie’s house, God reminded Samuel to not look at the outward appearance, but to look at the heart. Also, the pastor’s wife is the mother of five children, and she takes care of the children and him and the congregation, so when does she have time to be lazy, and he should look at her heart, especially since she now has to look at him because of the mess he has created for her and her children and her family. The pastor who feels that its the wife’s fault should stay in the word, and he will have less time to condemn someone else’s wife.

9. Thank you, Mr. Goldstein, for bringing all this to light. Even though it’s easily the most nauseating, disgusting thing I’ve seen in a veritable smorgasbord of nauseating, disgusting things emanating from the Red party in the last few years. WHAT is WRONG with these people??

10. All forms of religion, not just Christianity, should be discouraged. We need logic and reason, not fantasy beliefs in gods and miracles. One needs only to study the past to see how religous quackery has contributed to man’s still primative state.
Learn to think.

11. Join the crowd of the human race and get off your high horse of moral superiority because another religious leader is a hypocrite. Spare me the crap that every church and every religious leader is about money. Let me see how many churches are in America and how many pastors are there? Every one of these are hypocritical? How this different than a prejudicial comment about all Jews or all blacks? We learn one thing. God is not religion and Jesus is not Christianity. Humans screw it up. Big news.

12. Isn’t it good to know that pastors have such a spiritual outlook on marriage?

13. Blame the victim, because a good Christian never could do anything wrong on his own.

14. What a bunch of misogynistic, “blame the victim” hypocrites. On a lark, I went to “Pastor” Driscoll’s blogsite – truly another world. First of all, you cannot get an account to comment unless you’d attended some Mars Hill Church seminar. Second, the weirdness just continued – “thanks for your insight” comments without a trace of irony. Your right, David; these people are like rock stars – drunk on power, “entitled” to having fawning, brainless followers, (all Dead Heads excepted), and constantly needing the adulation of their church members to feed their pitifully fractured egos. May they all be crushed under the weight of their dysfunction.

15. OF COURSE his wife is to blame!! “Christian” men have been blaming women for their faults and especially sexual misdeeds for centuries. All you have to do is read the Bible where there are countless examples of “evil” women who caused the downfall of, well, the human race (oh, I mean “mankind.”) Eve anyone??

16. Today I had the pleasure of throwing my bible in the dump. No longer will I be associated with anything with a hint of religion. Religion is the root of all evil.

17. Let me understand the good clerics point. If I let myself go my husband will become a gay drug addict. Gosh I had no idea I had that sort of power. The theory that I can turn my husband’s sexual orientation to the hetro or gay position based on what my scale says is amazing. I wonder what I do to make him like Fat Tire beer rather than Redhook. What he seems to be saying is that the husband is a creature without a mind of his own. Thank God I am not married to a christian pastor. I like my husband, I don’t want a creature I can manipulate with a fork.

18. Evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Moslems sound so much alike; notice how they demonize women. It’s a woman’s fault if they stray.

Those were the cleanest responses I could pull. If you think you can handle it, you should consider reading the rest of the comments. It’s important to see how unbelievers think, especially if you are so far removed from the world that you don’t remember…

Driscoll’s comments were out of line. I mean, they made me mad, and I’ve been a believer for 10 years. What was he implying even bringing up at all a wife’s appearance in this? So, if I get fat then my husband might cheat on me? Fat people have no hope, huh? Is this really the image we want to project as christians? “Yeah, I love you and all, but you’re fat so I’m outta here.”

We are the same people who want to define marriage, but they don’t want to include unconditional (or as close as we can get to it) love it in? Tomorrow I’m going to shock alot of you with my views on homosexuality. I’ll go ahead and say I agree with the Bible, so you can breathe a little now, but I hope you have time to come back and see what I have to say tomorrow.