My Favorite Sin.

In the mid-80s, America watched as then-leaders of the PTL Club, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, were removed from the ministry they had founded amid allegations of embezzlement, fraud, and an adulterous affair between Jim Bakker and his former secretary, Jessica Hahn.

At the time, fellow television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart said the Bakker scandal was “a cancer on the body of Christ.” Not more than a year later, Mr. Swaggart himself was confessing, crying, and begging forgiveness of his own followers on national television. He had been caught regularly hiring prostitutes.

Also in 1987, evangelical faith healer Peter Popoff was exposed as a charlatan by skeptic James Randi (The Amazing Randi), who discovered Popoff’s use of radio earpieces and planted audience members during faith healing.

Avarice, envy, pride,
Three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all
On Fire. - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

In 1991, Primetime Live announced that prayer requests sent to televangelist Robert Tilton were being thrown away without anyone even looking at them. Of course, the money donated was always kept.

In 1992, Rev. James Whittington, a televangelist, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for money laundering, mail fraud, conspiracy, and interstate transportation of stolen property from his ministry and direct mail business, Fountain of Life Ministries, in the 1980s.

In the late 1990s, stories and lawsuits started to surface involving Catholic priests who had molested and otherwise abused young boys within the church. Some cases dated back to the 1950s and 1960s. As a direct result of payouts to settle cases, the Archdioceses of Portland, Spokane, and Tucson have all filed for bankruptcy protection.

Televangelist and faith healer Benny Hinn was investigated by Dateline in 2002 and 2005. Their reports indicate that Hinn lives a very upscale life while his charities get only a small percentage of the donations that come to his ministry.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. - Oscar Wilde

Ted Haggard.

Pastor Ted.

Founder of one of the most conservative, evangelical megachurches in Colorado Springs; friend to Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family; believer that homosexuality can be “cured” and facilitator of groups who do just that; president of the 30-million member National Association of Evangelicals; a voice in President Bush’s ear since the beginning of the current administration, speaking via conference call to the White House every week; the man of whom it has been said, “no pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism.”

Pastor Ted.

Homosexual.

Adulterer.

Drug user.

Liar.

Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. - Proverbs chapter 16, verse 18

In a written statement to his congregation at New Life Church in Colorado Springs , good old Pastor Ted said this:

The fact is I am guilty of sexual immorality. And I take responsibility for the entire problem. I am a deceiver and a liar. There’s a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I have been warring against it for all of my adult life.

The problem is not your sin, Ted. It’s that you (and others before you, and no doubt many after) repress your natural desires, the very desires God himself gave you, because you believe so whole-heartedly in a religion that tells you what you feel is wrong, dirty, and sinful.

What kind of a loving God would say “You’ll suffer eternal damnation if you do that” and then make it unbearable if you don’t?

So you stuff it down inside and ignore it, hoping the urges will go away. You rot from the inside out, at least until the scandal breaks, which it always does.

Your sin is not sex with other men, or methamphetine use, or adultery, Ted. You are guilty, rather, of being overbearingly self-righteous, of telling homosexual men they were sinning in the eyes of God while you were doing the very things you preached against, of vehemently speaking out against your very own nature.

You are guilty of self-righteousness, of believing you had all the answers. You took it upon yourself to morally judge how others live their own lives in the eyes of God.

Just like all the other envious, lustful, gluttonous, angry, lazy, greedy, rotten b******* listed here and the ones yet to be found out, your sin, Ted, is my personal favorite:

P R I D E

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal

http://www.divatology.com/deeper/?p=535

Is it .............."The kettle always calls the pot black"?

Humans hiding behind the word of god. These people where famous so were bound to hear about it.

Youve made some very clear points. Trippers...... you have to be careful who you trust these days.
"Your local Priest, bible go'er, evangelist could be full of c#*p!

Interesting read. Thanks.

Pretty much explains why Christians are so despised in so much of the world. Hypocrites that prey on the weak-minded or hopeful people in a world where true spiritualism is fleeting at best, absent at worse.

Plus, it's just plain icky!

Ya hit the nail on the head with this. GOOD READ. I trust none only myself and how I beleive.

Quality read. Thanks for posting.

momentarylapseofreason.........you, by far, are my favorite sinner....lol

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