Well, not so much.
My partner and I moved from Atlanta to South Carolina not too long after the Episcopal Church ordained Gene Robinson as its first openly gay bishop. Since we were embarking upon a new life in a new place, we decided to check out the Episcopal churches in the area. I sent an email to the rector of the church in the town we would be moving to and asked him if his church was welcoming to gays and lesbians.
His response was one that Ted Haggard would love. The rector told us that yes, in fact, his church was very welcoming of gays and lesbians—as long as we followed the biblical mandate for sexuality and renounced our sexual orientation and sought to marry nice Episcopal men. Well, he didn’t say it in those exact words—but that was his message. Yes, you're welcome as lesbians to be in our church, but we expect that we'll convict you that you're wrong and will want to change.
That’s the message of Haggard’s brand new church in Colorado Springs, which he
announced this afternoon.
Asked if his new church would take a position on homosexuality, Haggard said “we will take positions.”
“I’m going to teach the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse… but I don’t want to be a political activist.” Haggard explained that the church wouldn't advocate a specific public policy, but would instead “encourage” members to strive towards the ideal of biblical heterosexuality and monogamy.
That’s kind of rich coming from Haggard (the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals) who got caught in a sex and drugs scandal with a male prostitute in 2006. Since then, Haggard has been trying to rehab his image—claiming he’s a heterosexual with “
homosexual attachments”—whatever that means. Now he calls sexuality “complex and confusing,” and swears his new church won’t be performing any gay marriages:
We are a church and I believe that God’s ideal plan for marriage is the union of a man and a woman in a heterosexual monogamous relationship, so those are the types of marriages we will do in our church. Now, as for society, working with that question, that is a totally different subject. But within the church, that’s where we at St. James will be.
~snip~
Meet the new charlatan, just the same as the old charlatan.
According to Haggard:
“St. James is a church for sinners – for people who have hit rock bottom and people who want to help people who have hit rock bottom,” said Haggard, according to The Denver Post. “It is not a gathering for the righteous, except those who are righteous by faith.”
“Everybody is welcome: Democrats, Republican, Independents, gays, straights, tall, short, addicts and recovering addicts,” he said.
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100602/ted-haggard-to-pastor-new-church-in-colorado/index.html
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