If you walk into my office and turn hard to the right, you’ll see some pictures on my bookshelves. One of those pictures shows me with someone you likely wouldn’t have recognized until recently.
Oh, there it is: a picture of me arm and arm with the then relatively under-known President of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals, and Senior Pastor of a 15,000-member church in Colorado. We were both smiling, brimmingly.
Now if you follow the news, you know who I was arm and arm with: None other than the now-famous/infamous Ted Haggard.
I’m not gay.
But I do love Ted Haggard. When news broke of his sexual misconduct exposed through a politically-motivated male prostitute, I was crushed, and yet I must admit, one of my first personal Pharisaical questions was: Should I take the picture off my bookshelf? Was Ted still worthy to consume valuable real estate on my bookshelf? Sure, it was never a question before. But now?
Then I thought about my arm — you know the wholesome one — around Ted there in the picture. Is even my arm any more “wholesome” than Ted’s, or Ted’s accusers’, or George Bush’s or Bill Clinton’s or Billy Graham’s? Does anyone, anywhere, have truly wholesome arms? Or hands? Or brain? Or heart?
Here’s what I see here: (1) You likely will get more “famous” for the bad you do than for the good you do; and, (2) way down deep, you really aren’t any better than Ted.
So, for now, my picture with Ted stays. Unless you can offer any really compelling reason it shouldn’t. I think it deserves real estate on my precious bookshelf—as a monument to grace, mercy, and compassion for people with arms different than mine, but not unlike mine.
For all my attempts at imitating Jesus, I am still a sinner in need of the God of James, who declares: “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” Is this your attitude? Or are your arms, hands, brain, heart, any better than Ted’s?
I remember when that picture was taken and I thought about that day when I heard the news. We’ve been praying for Ted and his family since then and I was glad that I didn’t see too much smugness from within the Church or without. Lord have mercy on us all.
We are all basically in the same place because a sin of one stripe is no different that any other in God’s eyes. What’s amazing is that God uses even our weakness to put the glory back to Him. I believe He will do this through Mr. Haggard, who has already publicly and sincerely sought the forgiveness of those he’s hurt, humbling himself first before his Lord and Saviour. Many of us who think we’re good in our own eyes because we haven’t done something like this have private lives and thoughts that may not be of this scale but are wrong nonetheless and need to be dealt with similarly by first coming before God’s seat of Mercy. I wonder who among us stone-throwers should do that right now.
By making the point that “I’m not gay, but…”, aren’t you already trying to distance yourself from Ted? It seems like that might send a very similar message to that of removing the picture. Just something to think about.
Thanks for your comment new listener!
I think you may be right; it could be percieved as so. I think maybe this is the problem with controversial titles that try to lure readers in. I hope that the title doesn’t distract from my biggest point in the next to the last paragraph: “grace, mercy, and compassion for people with arms different than mine, but not unlike mine.”
Mark
I definitely don’t think it distracts from the main point. We all need to remember that everyone makes mistakes, and no person can say that their sin is lesser than another’s.
My thoughts when issues like this come up with people (christian or non-christian) are usually:
1. It’s none of my business and I will really never know all of the facts behind the controversy, so I ignore the news.
2. God will be the one to judge. Not me.