This is generally a fluff blog. Look what cute thing my kid said! My other kid! Again! My (one time only) doctor is a smooth-low talker! I'm hormonal! I have exciting dreams about contact paper! I cannot. stand. the mis-use of 'your' and and and...! I wish so many things! I have an adorable daughter! I love things! My hubby can be so nice! I remind someone of a middle-aged black woman! And am evidently racist! I'm impatient! I am a gigantic idiot!
Right now, though, I feel the need to put down the fluff and take a stand. I just read this. Go ahead and click over there, read it for yourself. It's about a pastor who just asked his daughter (with small children no less) to stash his p0rn collection. 10 boxes worth. Seems one of his congregations is 'not pleased with him'. The others 'support him completely' - to which I wonder what/who they think they're supporting?
I am a Christian. A believer in God and in Christ. A person. A highly imperfect but forgiven person. A person who strives to be who God calls me to be, although I often fail spectacularly. I get sin. I get the entanglement of thoughts, the desire for things that we should turn our backs on. I get how slippery the slope can get. I get how pastors are people who sin, every person sins. Regardless that they are and should be held to a higher standard, they're still people. People who sin. People who sin and should repent.
This, though, I don't get.
This is sin. Big, fat, ugly sin. Plain and simple. Black and white. This is not ok!! He's been collecting this filth seemingly his entire life without remorse, without conviction. Gets RIGHTEOUS and DESERVED heat from his congregation and does he repent? get rid of it? feel convicted? come clean? get help (there's lots of Christian help for this very common sin)? NO. 'The p0rn god' hides the evidence. And most likely lies through his teeth. Goes unrepentantly deeper into the shadows and involves his family. Thank goodness he did - now we can all get a good laugh!
The comments on that post are mostly along the lines of "This is so hilarious!" I can see how this can be funny to a non-believer. Sounds like a classic... "You hear the one about the pastor and his 10 box p0rn collection?!" But as a Christian, I just can't see it that way. I can't see the humor in a man who consistently and repeatedly preaches one thing (I assume, anyway, because guess what?! SHOCKER! The Bible is chalk full of scripture that encourages wise and righteous living - and warns against the opposite) then does another. I see the sadness. The hypocrisy. The disappointment. The deception. The lives this will impact.
If I were him, I would be fearing God. In a big way. Even if he 'fools' everybody else, God knows.
"Let us pray" is right.
~We will return to your normally scheduled fluffiness shortly.
6 comments:
That is disgusting. I left a comment on her blog telling her not to let that trash into her home. Most of the other comments were just wrong!
I'm not a Christian anymore, but I was. And I remember that a really big rule is that God is the police and judge and jury, and we are not. It's not our job to monitor other Christians, or to compare their lives to the Bible. I'm sorry I posted a link to her blog entry, because I didn't mean to bring this down on her. It seems like only God should be blasting other people in blog posts.
I just can't believe he would ask his child to get involved. What kind of precedent is that setting?!?
Swistle, my beloved Swistle - you have a point, although I don’t think it’s a universal one. Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites because they were hypocrites! I have been a hypocrite myself (sadly, many times – did I ever tell you about the time I… cough… nevermind). I am not judging this guy out of thinking I’m better than he is (which is what Jesus is referring to) – I’m bringing up a blatant sin among a (albeit anonymous) brother. Matthew 18 all the way.
My aim wasn’t to slam him, more to point out that as Christians (those of us that are) we can’t sit by and pretend what isn’t alright is. I do plenty of that and this is as much an exercise in not keeping quiet when I shouldn’t. I sincerely hope this didn’t hurt anyone as that was not my intention, but sometimes the truth hurts. There is ultimately right and wrong. God makes the rules, I don’t (if I did, the temperature would certainly not rise above 90 degrees. Can I get an AMEN?).
Seriously, though, a pastor should be above that kind of consistent behavior. I’m sure God would agree. And although He doesn’t have a blog per se, He has given us lots of instruction, direction and guidance in the form of a big fat Book.
Wow, we are going to have some serious talk time next time you come get your hair done. I'll add my AMEN to your comments on all accounts Kristi.
What a tragedy, from the churches, to the poor women in his porn to ultimately our entire society. I wonder if the people laughing would be laughing if it were images of their naked daughters this preacher was getting off on. I wonder if the Church that supported him knew the whole truth? You never know. They may think the virtue of all virtues is to not judge and are all self righteous and everything because of their nonjudgmentalness.
On a positive note, even though, for those who reject Christianity, this man could be a poster boy, they know better. Scripture says we will be without excuse. We can point to the hypocrisy of others as a defense as we stand in our final judgment, but to do so we will have to sit next to God in his judgement seat as we judge those "others" for breaking our favorite law, and in so doing betray our own self righteousness.
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