One Man and One Woman?
Jerry Falwell Jr. has joined a distinguished/notorious list of Evangelical Christian leaders whose private sexual morality has not matched their public pronouncements. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Herbert W Armstrong, Garner Ted Armstrong, and Jimmy Swaggart promoted the "one man and one woman formula" when it came to homosexuals, but not so much when it applied to themselves. Likewise, we have learned that Jerry Falwell Jr. apparently welcomed a third person into his marriage for eight years (we are told that he liked to stand in the corner and watch his wife and the pool boy get jiggy with it).
I can hear it now: "Their moral failures don't make homosexuality right!" Which I am not at all reluctant to acknowledge is certainly true. However, it does negate the moral authority of these folks to discourse on the sexual morality of others. And, if we compare such behavior to the list of credentials which the Apostle Paul outlined for Church leaders, we are forced to reach the conclusion that they are disqualified from serving as leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ.
"What about David and repentance?" some of my religious friends will demand. It is one of the foundational tenets of Christianity that ANY time we are willing to repent and ask for God's forgiveness in Jesus' name, God is willing to forgive. Nevertheless, when Paul composed his list of qualifications for Church leaders, we have to assume that he was fully aware of how grace, mercy, and forgiveness worked when he recorded them. God forgave David, but we are told that he and his kingdom suffered horrendous public and private consequences for his sins. Paul said that no one can separate us from the love of God, but it is evident that he felt that folks could disqualify themselves from Church leadership!
Lonnie Hendrix
