took and mixed in with three measures of flour until
all of it was leavened." Matthew 13:33
From the December 2006/January 2007 Issue
Two Moral Tragedies: Lessons
for our Lives
Laura Thor
This is not a story about God and being gay, though its topic is two gay men and their faith. The real focus, and why it is relevant to any of us, is the question: How big is your God? Can God accept things you cannot? Does God make room for your good and your weakness? And most amazing of all, can God transform your apparent weaknesses into a new life of wholeness?
This week, two pastors admitted to what is considered scandal in their churches. One, Rev. Benjamin L. Reynolds, a pastor at Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, celebrated his final service October 29th, a month after resigning and coming out to his congregation as a gay man. Needing to heal his loneliness by finding a loving male partner, and knowing this would scandalize some of his church and perhaps lead to a painful splintering, he resigned. He is quoted by Bill Johnson in the Rocky Mountain News on November 4th: “I am so empowered by my decision…I just wanted to be clear about who I am, to be clear with those I love in my truth.”
Reverend Reynolds struggled for 45 years with his sexuality. Preaching the first time at age 6, he gradually realized he had a dual calling: to be a gay man, and to be a preacher. But both were not allowable in his mind, and when he upset some in his church for publicly supporting the passage of Referendum I, which would allow for legal unions of gay and lesbian couples, he could not hold the tension any longer and needed to make a costly change. By telling his beloved congregation about himself, he could preach more openly about his core belief in the Gospel of Jesus. Speaking of gays and lesbians, he said: “If we negate that these are people, people with faces, then we have negated the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Reverend Reynolds is continuing to honor his dual callings. He plans to seek ordination in the United Church of Christ (liberal enough to include a gay theology and gay unions) and pursue his doctorate in theology. “I am in an empowering place now…My ministry hasn’t ended. It now will just take a different path.”
Never marrying to try to fit in or cure himself, he kept himself open to the possibility of grace in the form of liberation: “If I had known how liberating it was to tell my truth, I’d have done it 30 years ago.”
How many of us can say we have always been true to ourselves, have always held ourselves open to grace by accepting who we are with the trust that, though it costs us dearly, we will be led to something new?
***
The story of Reverend Ted Haggard, also of Colorado Springs, is a different tragedy, one that will take more than a little grace to be redeemed.
Founder of New Life Church with 14,000 members, and head of the National Association of Evangelicals, he initially denied allegations by a former male prostitute that he had used methamphetamine and had sex with him over a three-year period. Because Haggard had preached for the passage of Amendment 43 that would define a marriage as only open to one man and one woman, his accuser, Mike Jones, felt he had to come forward. That Jones did so just before elections is either meritorious or reprehensible, depending on one’s political and moral views. Jones said he began to feel physically sick and cried often when he made the decision to come forward two months ago.
At that time local television Channel 9News reporter Paula Woodward shied away from Jones’ log of phone messages and letters allegedly from Reverend Haggard. Jones finally found an ear in KHOW radio host Peter Boyles after Boyles spoke about the controversial gay marriage measures. Jones sent an e-mail saying he had a story, and went on the air two days later without naming names. He only said he felt he needed to tell the public that lots of his customers were clergy, who were hypocritical when they claimed gay marriage would harm the institution.
Staff at 9News then called Haggard with questions about information Jones had given them earlier. The next day, Jones was back on Boyles’ show, this time implicating Reverend Haggard. By Thursday, November 2nd, Haggard resigned from both his posts, citing how the accusations, though untrue, created an atmosphere in which he could not continue his leadership until resolved. A few days later, he was fired by New Life Church.
Reverend Haggard at first denied he had ever used methamphetamine, or had ever been unfaithful to his wife. When he finally admitted to everything, the worst of it seemed to be the lying itself.
Reverend Haggard has a hard road to walk. Ahead of him are two challenges: first, accepting himself as gay or bisexual, and seeing where this leaves him now as a minister without a theology big enough to embrace his dual callings as minister and gay. Secondly, because of his inability to know or face himself years ago, and to struggle with what God’s will might have been for him then, he has difficult amends to make to his wife, five children, congregation, and all those his dishonesty has harmed.
What price have we individually paid for letting denial rule our lives? In other words, for making “deals with the devil”? How have we become unable to lie to ourselves about who we are, what our callings are, what our limitations are? Finally, how have we remained open to God’s plan for us being big enough to hold both our gifts and our failings?
Which minister would you rather hear preach the Good News about one year from today, when he’s had time to heal? Why? What would your answer depend on?