AP: Another evangelical pastor of a megachurch has resigned in a gay sex scandal. He says he’s known he’s gay since he was a little kid. Barnes married with two grown children. I wonder how many prominent pastors will have to admit that they’re gay before their followers figure out that these men are not choosing to destroy their lives by being gay — they were born that way.
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You should stop posting about each one and instead have a counter you update. :-P It’s getting to that point, which tells ya something.
I wonder who dropped the dime on him and why (aside from the obvious)? Was this guy as politically active as Haggard?
TrvInMn, probably not? Would be my guess at least, since we haven’t heard as much about it as we did with Haggard.
What a destructive little weasel. Imagine realizing that your dad, a guy that had made a life of preaching the word of God, didn’t even know his own heart. Had, in fact lived a lie. And had made a business of counseling others on how best to live a righteous life, and shape a righteous world. Is there a statute for moral fraud? This guy is more criminal than a thousand thieves.
He’s known since he was five? Then why did he choose to marry? I thought this was all about choice? I’m waiting for James Young’s pithy remarks…
Kevin et al,
Remember that he’s working within a mindset that says that if you work on it, you’ll become straight. Furthermore — and I’m less sure on this point, for this particular branch of Christianity — it is in God’s service to be fruitful and multiply. In light of both these things, Barnes’ course of action was correct, right up until he had sexual relations with a man. He was doing his best to follow the path God had set out for him, and yet his sinful attraction to men never went away, but he was trying.
I always feel bad for the wives of these people.
God gave Paul Barnes a unique gift, one that would leave him in a permanent and stigmatized minority for this time. Perhaps from here Brother Barnes would find transcendent illumination, compassion, and the Truth that there are many paths. But Barnes rejected His gift, choosing to believe the voices of darkness. He felt shame for the Creator’s will, and pridefully sought his own course. And so he fell.
Amen.
To flip the question around: What is it about closeted Gay men that makes them so ideal when it comes to creating and developing these massive evangelical megachurches?