A humbler road back

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Son of a Preacher Man by Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.* My brother-in-law had lent it to me, telling me that it was a pretty amazing expose of what really happened behind the PTL curtain. Nope, not really. Obviously, it's got a lot of inside anecdotes, but I found to be a self-serving apologetic for his parents. It should have been subtitled "How the World Has Always Been Out To Get My Parents and Especially Me."

*Actually, I started reading it a couple of weeks ago, too. It's a really quick read.

And that's understandable. Jay's obviously gone through a ridiculously crappy life, and it's pretty awesome that he's come through it to start a new ministry. And he wrote this book in 2000, when he was 24. I'm 24, and I know I'm not at the point where I can look back on my life with any sort of wisdom or maturity. I'm sure he's matured quite a bit since then. So Jay, if you're reading (and of course you aren't, unless you Google yourself and keep clicking on links through page 68), I totally understand why your book comes off that way. You seem like a cool enough guy.

But I've still got a problem with it. Jay spends much of the book bashing Christians for shunning his dad and his family, rather than forgiving him and restoring him to the ministry. Fair enough. But you know why people had a problem giving his ministry back to him? Because he had done some really bad stuff.

The classic example was when Jay got upset with Falwell and folks who took over PTL after Jim resigned because of his affair. Basically, he had had an affair seven years earlier and never told his wife. It only became public when the woman told the press. (PTL had actually earlier paid--or tried to pay, I don't remember if she took it--her to shut up about it, but Jay said his dad had no idea that happened.) So Jim resigned with the idea that he would take PTL back over when all this had blown over. When he did try come back, Falwell said no, and Jay called that "a corporate takeover, pure and simple. Where was the grace in that?" But Jay also says his dad came to Falwell "a few weeks" after he resigned. A few weeks? What pastor in his right mind has an affair, doesn't tell his wife and congregation until seven years later--and even then only because his hand is forced--then expects to have his ministry handed back to him within a few weeks? Rejecting that request isn't a lack of grace; it's called common sense.

Ted Haggard presents a similar situation, and this article by his former writer, Patton Dodd, offers the perfect remedy: He advises Haggard to "go away quietly, do the work of atonement, and let tales of his renewed life spring up naturally." A fallen actor can go back to acting, Dodd says, but a fallen pastor can't just waltz back into ministry because his ministry, unlike the actor's acting, is based on his integrity. And once his integrity is gone, his credibility to minister is gone, too. I think Dodd's last paragraph goes for anyone in public ministry who's fallen in a significant way:

"Haggard can't enter a pulpit, and he shouldn't seek to be a spiritual leader, at least not for eons. He can enter a congregation somewhere, and if he wants to do that, he should, as a fellow traveler with other seekers. And that congregation should embrace him. That's what his spiritual restoration would look like."

And all the people said...amen.