As the self-declared spokesman for all of Christendom (at least for the next few minutes), I find the text of Pastor Hagee’s apology to Roman Catholics one of the most equivocal, off-point, and self-preserving that I have read recently. On the other hand, unfortunately, it is also pretty much standard.
In chapter 16 of Matthew, Peter ‘makes the great confession’ - Jesus he says is the Son of the Living God. At Covenant, when someone wants to become a member or to be baptized, we ask them who Jesus is and we expect this response. Peter is correct when he says this, but it is not clear that Peter (or the other disciples) understood the ramifications of his statement. Following Peter’s statement we find a series of incidents that make us wonder just how much Peters actually believed what he had said. In the first instance, Jesus compares Peter to Satan. Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem and there he will die. Peter exclaims that he will not let that happen; Jesus will not be killed. Peter is expecting great things from Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God on behalf of Israel and he cannot fit Jesus dying into his hope for a greater Israel under this Messiah. This cannot happen, he reasons. Jesus’s response is a harsh re...
I do not know if it is good or bad that ministers/pastors are now in the news almost daily. Part of me thinks it is simply more of the ungodly trying to make the people following Christ look like fools. Of course, most of those raked across the coals are doing a very good job of making themselves look and sound foolish without anyone's help. So many televangelists, with their thousand dollar suits and multi-car garages (filled with Mercedes or Rolls Royces) or million dollar homes seem to go against the lifestyle of Jesus. Hagee is not the only one who frequently sticks his foot in his mouth and the worldly news outlets love it.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a bad thing if they make the rest of us look silly - or if they don't quite "look" Christian in their behavior. Since all of us fall short, my concern isn't about imperfection as such. More so though, when we are prominent, have a history of virulent oratory, and then offer a somewhat less than direct apology for that history.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that until our society (read: church-at-large) learns to accept simplicity as a way of life, we will be attracted to multi-thousand dollar suits, gold-encrusted sets, and enough make-up to spackle a house.
That by the way, is one thing the Roman Catholic church (at the local level) does practice - local priests don't get paid all that much - and of course monasteries model simple community lives rather well.