Caution: Beware Of Falling Preachers

Shocking Evangelical news of the day: another pastor has resigned because of hot man-on-man sex.

Here’s what Paul Barnes of Grace Temple Church in Colorado said to his congregation via a wrenching videotaped message:

“I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy … I can’t tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.”

My, my.   That is a sad little picture he’s painted for himself, what with the boo-hoo face and the quivery lip and all.   But I ain’t falling for it.   The only thing I feel is savage contempt. 

Sorry, but a man who collapses under the crushing weight of an oppressive culture that he, himself worked for 28 years to promote is not worthy of any sympathy.  On the contrary, his fall is divinely poetic in it’s justice.   

He didn’t step up and admit to his homosexual dalliances because he wanted to be honest and do the right thing by his congregation.   Oh, if only he had, this post would have a much different tone.  

Doing the right thing wasn’t even remotely close to the reason for his disclosure.  The disgusting creep did it because someone had anonymously threatened to drop a dime.   To, ahem, blow the whistle on him and go public.

What inner strength!   What principles!    What bullshit. 

If the threat of public outing had never occurred, it’s a pretty safe bet that he would be right now planning his sermon for next Sunday’s services;  a sermon that, quite possibly, would have included plenty of condemnation for the very carnal activities that this married father of two had partaken in on more than a few Saturday nights himself.   

He is nothing more than a lying hypocrit who got caught.   That’s all.

He is now on the ever-expanding list of powerful men of faith who’ve fallen with a magnificent thud.   He was found out, and he immediately resigned.   And now he will be swept quickly under the rug and forgotten in a desperate attempt by the church to keep it’s shameful foundational crack hidden from the tithing flock.   

I really don’t understand why so much of this country is still in the dark ages when it comes to homosexuality, but that’s where we are at this point in time.   So I accept that as a reality.  

But the dark-age dwellers have to accept a reality, too:  if you are going to stand up in front of people with the explicit purpose of telling them what is and is not proper for their lives, then you had better make damn fucking sure your own house is spotless of everything you condemn. 

Paul Barnes didn’t.

And since he chose to live by the sword, I smile with sheer delight as his severed head rolls around in the basket and I reserve my sympathy for those who truly deserve it.  

Namely, the thousands of everyday people who have been brutalized by strangers or shunned by their own families because they’ve dared to live open, honest lives in the harsh climate of hate that is spewed by fools like him in the name of their god.  

“I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” – Gandhi

Full article at Summit Daily News

Update:  This article makes me feel rather embarrassed about my leap to righteous anger about Paul Barnes. It states specifically that he was not politically aggressive – and I -wrongfully- assumed he was just like the rest of ’em who are. But in fact, he sounds like a decent kind of guy – the sort of Christian that I’ve heard tell of in stories about the olden days.

So I can no longer celebrate with wild abandon his downfall. Ted Haggard? Yeah, I’m still occasionally breaking out into impromptu jigs over Ted. But this guy? No. My heart actually goes out to him.

But just one question – how is it even possible that he can continue to believe in his heart that he wasn’t “born this way”?