Saw a documentary today on Ted Haggard, the disgraced pastor. I thought I’d see Christian hypocrisy at its height, and I did. I just didn’t expect from whom. There’s a great quote from Haggard:
If they were playing chess instead of checkers they’d know the church’s business was me, the sinner.
Word. As self-serving as that statement might be, it’s spot on. These evangelical types really demonstrate the reality that our faith is almost defined by hypocrisy in our modern culture from their position on homosexuality to its treatment of the sinner. As a Christian, I was very angered by what I saw. It demonstrated, yet again, how we Christians fail God on the basics:
Jesus taught us to pray this way
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:9-13
He goes on to say, “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.” That’s just basic to our faith: forgive the sinner. And yet so quickly forgotten.
