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"At
the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most
of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity.
A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray
with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be,
because God created Negroes to serve. "But suppose God is
black", I replied. "What if we go to Heaven and we, all our
lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we
look up and He is not white? What then is our response?" There was
no answer. Only silence." - Robert
F. Kennedy, Article for LOOK Magazine following visit to South Africa,
1966
Upon arriving home at the ranch one
night I discovered a booklet had been stuck on the gate titled,
"THE END OF FALSE RELIGION IS NEAR!" in BIG BOLD print.
My first thought was "that's good" ... but how do they know?
Opening the booklet I found that it was Jehovah Witness literature ...
that, I am sure, is interesting to some people, but not to me.
However, I was intrigued with the title and wondered how I could use it
for a Science of Mind lesson. And, of course, with the idea to use
it came the information necessary ... in the form of the events of this
past week.
Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the
30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals, and pastor of a
14,000 member Evangelical Church ... and participant in Christian
leaders' conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members
of Congress last year on U. S. Supreme Court appointees ... has been
"out-ed" by a gay male escort ... denied the charges ... and
then within 24-hours "confessed" to some of the charges ...
and has now been removed from the church that he founded in the
Mid-1980s in the unfinished basement of his Colorado Springs home.
One of his church members, said the
congregation had hoped the allegations "were all lies."
"We all have to move forward now," she said. "This
doesn't make what Ted accomplished here any less. The farther up you
are, the more you are a target for Satan."
With all respect to this member, it is not at
all as simple as that. Everything that happens to any of us ...
happens through our consciousness. And so we can know that a
belief in both a heaven and a hell ... God and a Satan ... creates
within the consciousness of the person holding this belief ... the
opportunity to experience negativity in their life. And this
negativity led Rev. Ted Haggard to politics. And no, he wasn't a
politician in the usual sense ... but when religious leaders get
involved in politics ... they are acting outside of their
"calling" ... and this can only lead to discord.
Rev. Haggard became a fierce antagonist of gay and lesbian rights
... and especially same-sex marriage. Ignoring the separation of
church and state, Haggard and his organization, the National Association
of Evangelicals, have consistently lobbied for eliminating all rights
for gays and lesbians based solely on religious beliefs. Abraham
Lincoln stated, "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not
for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."
Abraham Lincoln may not have been a "preacher" ... or
religious ... but he certainly understood the relationship between God
and man more so than many of the Evangelical and fundamentalist
Christian ministers of today and in his era.
The Law of Life will not allow us to
have that which we attempt to deny anyone. And Rev. Haggard's
diatribes against gay and lesbian people, at the "soul level"
... an attempt to take away their self-esteem and value ... revealed his
own consciousness. Our awareness of the Science of Mind makes it
clear that this is what he was lacking within himself. I would
suggest to you that he hated that part of himself that was attracted to
men ... as within, so without ... it is all the Law of Mind in
expression ... and our "judgments" can become harsh
experiences in the physical.
This weekend, speaking in Colorado, President
Bush, aims to mobilize "values" voters ... and has promoted a
federal ban on same-sex marriage. In other words, he wants to
attract the voters, who like himself, would deny others what he wants
for himself ... the freedom to marry the person of his choice. I
guess George Bush has not thought much about what can be learned from
Rev. Ted Haggard's experience ... but then, maybe he thinks it was the
work of Satan too!
Life makes a lot more
sense when we examine it through the insight gained through the study of
the Science of Mind. The Law of Life is "no respecter of
persons" ... and so we can understand what has happened with Rev.
Ted Haggard ... and we can feel compassion for this man, and especially
for his wife and children ... and pray that he finds a better God within
himself.
AND SO IT IS!
Keep
the faith!
Rev. Hank
Bates
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