While many become haggard looking for hope, former pastor and president of the National Association of Evangelicals reminds us just how deceitful and hopeless sin can be.
Ted Haggard was on Oprah this week talking about his therapy, but probably mostly selling his HBO movie.
He talked of some experience as a child that he never thought of as sexual abuse but when he casually mentioned to his therapist that he was still wetting the bed and wetting his pants in the sixth grade, the therapist thought some more exploration was necessary. Apparently this experience is at least part of the cause of Haggard's homosexual struggles.
I didn't listen enough to get the full story, but in the short part I listened to, I was reminded of just how deceitful sin can be.
At the moment Haggard attached his homosexual struggles to an event that happened forty years earlier, he lost his hope. You see, out of everything that Haggard can change, his past is not one of them.
Once we believe that our behavior is caused by past experiences, we have no hope of future change. Why? Because the past will never change.
Only when Haggard realizes that his homosexual dalliances were caused solely by his wicked heart searching for satisfaction apart from God can he find hope for change.
In biblical discipleship, we must refuse to allow people to blame the past for present actions. It removes the ground of hope.
Only when we place our problems in our wicked hearts can we find hope, because Jesus died to purchase our salvation and change our heart.
The only thing from the past that will help me find change is the cross of Christ. If you are going to focus on the past, at least go back to the part of the past that can actually help you.
8 comments:
Do you think Haggard was just blaming his sin on this incident as if the incident took away his responsibility?
Isn't it more likely that he was saying this incident was part of the process in his life through which these attractions developed? And if so, isn't that likely to be true?
Thanks Jason. A couple of comments.
1. Haggard was the thing that sparked my comments, but I was pointing to a larger issue of the deceitfulness of sin, namely, that something in man's past causes present actions. I think we all tend to do this, even with comments as simple as, 'I know I shouldn't have, and I am sorry, but you said/did, etc.'
2. I do think Haggard, at some level, is trying to avoid responsibility, or at least mitigate it. Again, we say thinks like "I know I shouldn't have but ..." Generally, IMO, anything that comes after the "but" is usually an attempt at mitigation ... why it was really okay for me to do what I did.
3. It may be that past experiences contributes to (not causes) present behavior. I don't know anyone who would deny that. My point is about how we handle that. With Haggard we are talking about something 40 years ago or more. Not something ongoing where a person's behavior toward Haggard can change.
4. I think we need to go after the idol of the heart. What was Haggard (or me or you) looking for that couldn't be found in God and obedience?
So it's certainly more complex than can be handled in a brief blog post, but hopefully my main point doesn't get lost in that.
Thanks again for reading and commenting.
Are you really this ignorant, or am I just misunderstanding you? Are you seriously saying that homosexuality is caused by "Only when Haggard realizes that his homosexual dalliances were caused solely by his wicked heart searching for satisfaction apart from God can he find hope for change."?
Much, if not MOST of homosexuality in men is caused by some sort of incident (more correctly termed as abuse) from childhood. If it weren't for childhood sexual abuse, there would be many fewer homosexual men. Homosexuality is not natural at all and people don't search it out naturally. It was taught them.
Now, I do agree with you if you are saying that we are not forever tied to our past. Thank God for that! Yes, we can be set free from all of our past and don't have to be chained to it!
I hope you don't think I'm being rude. But your comments, at first blush, to me seemed off base, if you really think that men choose homosexuality and it wasn't forced on them. Granted, I'm sure there are some cases like that, but if we were honest, I would think the vast, vast majority of homosexual men were abused or had some sort of "incident" in childhood that made them turn to this unnatural activity.
Looking back at my post, that looks really rude. I didn't mean it that way. It was pretty rude to say "are you really that ignorant." I meant to say somethinglike "do you really believe this?" without coming across as brash..............anyway, just wanted to say that.......by the way, good use of the word "haggard."
Thanks for your comments. It was a bit rude, but I am not thin-skinned.
As to your question, I think you may be missing the point of "cause." Lots of people have been abused as children far worse than Haggard who did not turn out to be homosexual or have great sexual problems. Therefore, abuse cannot be the cause.
As I said above, abuse (or the past) may contribute. But the cause of sin is always a heart that seeks satisfaction outside of God and his plan for living.
Homosexuality is a choice. People may have certain predispositions toward types of sexual behavior for a variety of reasons. But what we think about and who we engage in sexual activity with is a choice (except for rape).
So I think we need to think a little deeper than we are typically accustomed to doing. Sinful activity such as homosexuality always springs out of wrong thinking ... out of seeking satisfaction apart from God.
Again, thanks for reading and commenting.
Larry:
Excellent post. What a great thing to point out. We all have the capability to find things in out past that we can blame our current sin on. The hard part is getting this to square with James 1. And of course James warns us after explaining how sin works that we are not to deceive ourselves.
And you are spot on: the only thing in the past that can REALLY help us with current problems is the shed blood of The Lamb!
~Jon
I know this is an old post and you're probably done talking about it. But something hasn't set well with me for a few days after I read it, and I'm finally ready to comment.
I saw that interview and actually thought Haggard did a good job. He was humble and honest. He kept to his conviction that his actions were SIN. He didn't let Oprah convince him otherwise though she tried at every point.
I believe in total depravity--a condition we all possess in equal portion. Yet by your reasoning, all of us would struggle with the same sin issues that Haggard did regardless of our experiences. I don't agree with that. The other facet of his sin issue is often missed in reformed circles (my personal doctrinal camp). That is the fact that we were created in the image of God, and though that image was fatally flawed through Adam's sin, we still bear His image. Haggard was made in the image of God and the wonder of what God created him to be was terribly warped through the depravity of someone else against him.
There was the depravity within Ted, certainly. But you can NOT discount the depravity outside of Ted that affected him greatly.
He wasn't an innnocent child. None of us are. But we can't deny that the abuse he experienced as a child affected him deeply and influenced the sin issues he struggled with thereafter.
Thanks Wendy, Good to hear from you and I hope all is well.
I didn't see the whole interview, and honestly haven't read much about the Haggard saga. Apparently there are ongoing issues of truth and honesty that are recently coming out in the story of the young man they paid a settlement to. So I am not sure how "humble and honest" that is.
But more to the point, part of what I was trying to say (however inept I managed to be), was that we need a more stout distinction between cause and correlation.
I think the worst sinner in the world still bears the image of God and thus, has some inherent worth that non-image bearers don't have. And I do think people can be "warped" (to use your word) through someone else's depravity against them.
My point is that these events of the past do not "cause" us to do sinful things. They may contribute to the expression of our depravity, but they are not "causes." Many people have horrific experiences in life far worse than Haggard's who do not express their depravity as he did. And thus the act was not a "cause," though it may be a contribution.
This is one reason why I am not firmly against the idea that homosexuality (or alcoholism, or adultery, or something else) might have a genetic factor. There might indeed be a "homosexual gene" that predisposes one to manifest their depravity in certain ways. But that is not a cause. The most we can say is that there may be a correlation.
So I agree that the depravity outside of Ted affected him greatly, but I don't think that caused him to do what he did. As you say, it affected him and influenced him to be sure.
Part of this whole thing is about hope. How can we give hope to someone if their actions/problems are caused by something they can't change? That is a truly hopeless situation. Only when we realize that our greatest problems are in us, and not around us, can we begin to find hope.
Hopefully that clarifies. I might write a follow up post on this to try to clarify.
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