We Need Fewer Congregations and More Communities.

Ted Haggard has admitted to sexual indiscretions with a male prostitute. He has resigned from his positions with his church and as head of a large National Evangelical organization thathas been speerheading Anti-Gay marriage legislation.
Many things have been said about this sad but hopefully useful confrontation between evangelical fantasies (religious and sexual) and the real world.

Here is my 2 cents worth

I am always disturbed by our Evangelical ability to proclaim that God loves everyone but will automatically cast same-sex oriented people into the lake of eternal fire. How can we not see the monstrous inconsistency of such a claim? As people who profess to have the mind of Christ I wonder if we even have active, fully working human minds and hearts.
This is a real blindspot in our theologies and our lives. Until we can get past our deep seated prejudices and learn to think and act in a new way, our proclamation of the 'good news' will continue to be seen as hypocritical and even hurtful.

Someday I hope to be able to outline some ways for us to view sexuality that doesn't make us and God into monsters and yet doesn't contradict the teachings of Christ.

But for today I will simply offer this quote from the Canadian emergent church internet conversation called Resonate.

I hope this wonderful comment will Resonate with you and with the CEO style church government at many places of worship.


"We build large organizations and place people at the distant top..Loaded with power and prestige.. and alone..And then we are surprised when they fall..If we had more communities and fewer congregations we would see fewer of these issues..and when they did occur they would be less public, and would more likely engender a process of healing wonder if the churches where these things occur have any idea that they share the guilt in the falling of the leaders?"

Leonard Hjalmarson
resonate