Ted Haggard

Reverend Ted Haggard of New Life Church had been accused of some awful sordid things of late.  Gay sex, meth use, basically hiring gay prostitutes.  I held off commenting because I know how these accusations arise sometimes.  However, Haggard admitted to some of them and resigned.

What IS it with religious leaders partying and doing bad things I don’t even have a remote curiosity to do?  Meth and gay sex, sounds more like a washed up rocker than a preacher to me.  The Catholics have taken a hit on perverted priests, but it doesn’t really seem to limit itself to them exclusively.  Anyone remember the embarrassing shenanigans of

Jimmy Swaggart or

Jim Bakker?  At least with Bakker, he was sinning in a way most males of the planet, and a few females I’m sure as well, would have succumbed to as well.  He was supposedly raping Jessica Hahn:

But, to digress.  Swaggart actually got his break by defrocking the leader of his church, Marvin Gorman, for, you guessed it, having an adulterous affair.  Swaggart denounced Jim Bakker as a "cancer on Christianity" shortly before being outed by, you guessed it, Gorman.  Now, here’s where I start tying all the loose ends together.  Swaggart is related very closely to Jerry Lee Lewis.  Hahn left ex-preacher Bakker for ex-preacher Kinison, and appeared on his video of Wild Thing.  The perversions and meth-induced gay prostitute sex of Ted Haggart is all tied together in a chain of events that dates back to roughly 1988.  Which oddly enough, is the year this video came out:

That’s Jessica Hahn with an ex-preacher and a bunch of rock stars in 1988.  The main point of this entire post was to find a good reason to broadcast a most likely, illegal stream of one of the all time greatest rock videos of all time.  Look at that line-up! ( I still miss you, Sam Kinison! )

OK, back to the oratory.  The problem, as I see it, is the kids of the world would much rather emulate the rock stars than Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, or Ted Haggard.

And, how can you blame them?  How many kids do you think want to live a life of double-standards, hypocrisy, and gay sex that you have to pay for ( I’ll give him the credit he bought the meth, but never used it ( yeah, I know. ))?

There’s a crisis in religion.  It’s not just a Catholic thing, it’s not just a Christian, and, it’s not just Muslim.  Don’t ask me to explain it, but it’s very obvious the problem’s there when the actions of some of the most decadent rock stars of all time don’t even hold a candle to those people that are preaching against them and are the shining leadership of a thousand groupies ( make that members ).

Actually, the problem’s simple to me.  Any time you put your faith in a human being, they’ll let you down in one way or another.  Whether it’s a rock star or a preacher, they’re all human.  Televangelists perform no different than a rock star.  The more they get you sold on themselves, the more they make.  Televangelists use God, rock stars use the rock culture.  It’s no different in delivery.  Until people start looking beyond the messenger to the message itself, there will be another generation of people more than willing to fall prey to meth-abusing-gay-prostitute-using holy men telling them they have sinned and he is the only way to God, and that same mentality will give us another generation of kids strung out on drugs because their idol is a strung-out rocker telling them it’s the only way to rock and roll.

The advice to avoid all that is a VERY old.  Something like "beware of false prophets".  Not too many people pay attention to that part apparently. It’s as true in religion as it is in rock.  Some prophets sell salvation, some sell fun.  Make your own salvation, make your own fun.  Then, idols will never let you down.