A wolf in sheep's clothing

By now, everyone has heard about the Reverend Ted Haggard, who publicly disdains the homosexual lifestyle, and yet privately embraces it, along with the drug use that obviously goes with it. Gay sex and drugs - all that’s missing is Rock & Roll to complete the '70s mantra.

Pastor Ted was the leader of the largest Evangelical church in the nation, and was president of a national association of evangelicals that had some 30 million members. Unfortunately, none of those 30 million would give him the pleasure that a gay masseuse could, and provide the meth that he needed in order to achieve the spiritual high that he craved. The only thing missing is the depraved Rock & Roll that would complete the picture.

Now, thanks to Amanda, we find out that Rock & Roll fits into the picture quite nicely, and in doing so, it explains much about the mindset of the fundamentalist movement, and how it attempts to fit the cult of personality into the culture of promiscuity.

Apparently, there’s a pastor out there that tries to put the Hip into shooting-from-the-hip. He says that it’s the wife’s fault that the man strays from the straight and narrow. If the man succumbs to the gay, it’s the wife’s fault for letting herself go. That explains it all - women who don’t maintain their Tammy Faye Baker persona are causing their pastor husbands to stray from the fold, and play birds and bees with anything that shakes its tail feathers.

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. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.

Apparently, this guy, Mark Dricoll, has had numerous floozies flaunt themselves before him, and he’s been forced to shut off all contact with the outside world in order to maintain his piety.

Pastors should have their office at the church and their study at home. There is no reason a pastor should be sitting alone at the church at odd hours (e.g., early morning and late evening) to study when anyone can drop in for any reason and have access to him. Instead, a pastor should come into the office for scheduled meetings and work from home on tasks such as emails, planning, studying, sermon preparation, etc. I spend the vast majority of my time working from home. Some years ago when I did not, I found that lonely people, some of them hurting single moms wanting a strong man to speak into their life, would show up to hang out and catch time with me. It was shortly thereafter that I brought my books home and purchased a laptop and cell phone so that I was not tied to the church office.

So this guy couldn’t handle the temptation of single women wanting his advice, so he shunned their evil attempts to request counsel from their pastor, and took the Godly path of shielding himself from their stalking ways, and sequestered himself from the public.

Isn’t this contrary to what a Pastor is supposed to be? I thought a Pastor devoted his life to providing counsel to those in need of enlightenment.

He goes on to expose more paranoid delusions:

Pastors need to carefully protect their cell phone number. If that private number gets out, too many of the wrong people have access to the pastor. Not only should the cell phone number of a pastor be given out to only a few people, he should also consider eliminating his voicemail and simply have calls forwarded to his assistant. In this way people will not become too informal with the pastor and if the pastor knows someone is trouble (e.g., a flirtatious woman), he can see that on his caller ID and simply refuse to answer the call or have to deal with a voicemail.

And so, Pastor Driscoll provides a primer on how supposed men of God can provide sustenance to their flock - avoid them at all cost, shun their attempts at communication, and have your underlings deal with their concerns. Sounds like a plan to me. Never mind that they need your guidance, or that they joined your religion with the hope that someone would care about their plight. As long as your church grows, and you continue to reap donations, it doesn’t matter that the congregation is still suffering. After all, suffering works for your fundraising efforts.

And how, again, does this mesh with the teachings of Jesus?