Is Ted Haggard a Victim of Evangelicalism?

Is Ted Haggard a Victim of Evangelicalism?

Unquestionably.

This is bs. Are you serious? He lived like a king off of tythes and you know plenty of little old ladies gave him their last dollar in the name of Jesus. He’s a grown man who is suffering the consequences of his choices. Plenty of people grow up in fundamentalist homes and come out of it as gay, atheist, whatever, and get on with their lives. Of course it wouldn’t have been easy for him to come out and face his sexuality but many others have done it and he could have too.
Please don’t feel sorry for this man. He’s a victim of himself plain and simple. Now he’s feeling pathetic and asking for pity? C’mon. Serious?

He’s a victim the same way any of us are victims. Myself, I don’t like the word as it makes it seem as though I’m powerless. He’s a product of evangelicalism. His hateful personality is a memetic survival machine for his hateful worldview.

Is Ted Haggard a Victim of Evangelicalism?

Sure, but really, is that the more pressing question? As an adult, he is responsible for his own actions.

Yes, we are all influenced in countless ways as children. We continue to be influenced as adults. The difference is, as adults, ultimate responsibility for our actions still lies with us, regardless of the influences. Which is not to say that influences are entirely without culpability in some circumstances (cult leaders influencing adults to do wrong are culpable, to be sure, as just one example, but even then the cult leader bears responsibility for actions as adults), but Ted’s a grown up now, and responsible for himself.

It seems to me the more relevant question is, now that Ted’s a responsible adult, what is he doing to try to be better as an individual in terms of the things for which he is responsible?

I hope he comes to terms with wherever he falls on the Kinsey continuum. I think the guy’s a royal asshole, but I don’t rejoice that he’s suffering financial troubles, nor about the complex and painful effect all these events have on his extended family.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he still has to own his actions, and who he is, and work toward not just understanding, but improvement in his own condition and experience. That includes owning all the ills he’s visited on others.

Until then, he still has a long way to go before I start losing any sleep that he’s a “victim.”

This is one of the things that bugs me about religious indoctrination: too many opportunities to pass the blame for actions onto something else (the devil, evil spirits, “original sin,” “pleasures of the flesh,” etc.). Too many built in mechanisms to absolve (psychologically, if nothing else) people of their own self-possession and agency. Too many built-in mechanisms to establish guilt over things that don’t deserve it in the first place (like whether you prefer consensual sex with adults of the same gender), and remove guilt over things that do deserve it (like condemning, without reasonable or humane basis, people for wanting to enjoy the same rights and respect that others have; or insisting that fairy tales replace legitimate science in our efforts to be a better species).

Victim of Evangelicalism? Shit, we’re all victims of that, in a way. So what are we gonna do about it? What’s Ted gonna do about it? Will he start to make amends to those he’s wounded, or at least try to go forward without heaping further abuse on those he’s already wronged?

We’ll see. We’re all victims of something or another at some point in our lives. It’s what we do after that where the real question of mettle arises, I think.

No kings,

Robert

Homosexuals having to live in the closet instead of coming out and facing their families hatred based on religion, they are victims of evangelicalism. Not Haggard. He is not a young person who didn’t know what to do with his feelings. Even if Haggard was hiding them, he had no right to spread so much hatred around. He los his opportunity for empathy, he created a hell that now he is suffering. Karma is a bitch, but a pretty fair bitch.

It is like the cycle of child abuse, yes many abusers are often abused themselves as children, but it does not excuse their actions. Yes, Haggard was victimized by evangalism as a child and young man, but he chose to continue that cycle and harm others. I do not feel sorry for him, but maybe now he can change direction and start fixing some of the harm he has done.

Ted is as much a victim as any other victim who’s been indoctrinated into religion, in the same sense that it’s not completely Tom Cruise’s fault that he was suckered into an evil cult. They’re all victims. I mean if we get really relativistic, nobody’s responsible for anything because free will only exists on a superficial level.

But the buck’s gotta stop somewhere and to a large extent people must be held accountable for their own actions or else society itself crumbles. Haggard was an ass who reaped what he sowed. It’s just unfortunate that he’s got a family, which happens to include a daughter who’s fairly liberal and who disagrees with at least some of the more hateful things her father has preached.

But don’t let the media fool you. I work in reality television so believe me when I tell you that what you saw is only designed to bring out your sympathies. That’s the goal. If the film didn’t hit anyone emotionally it would have been a bad film. The man’s evil incarnate. Not only was he a smug a-hole in Jesus Camp but also when Richard Dawkins interviewed him.

I think this is often the case with religion. Its perpetrators are also its victims. The people we’re angry at are also people we should feel compassion for… and vice versa.

I don’t see this as a contradiction. I feel sympathy for Ted Haggard, his life was definitely warped by his religion. But other people in his situation made different decisions. They didn’t opt for dishonesty; they didn’t opt to screw up lots of other lives alongside their own… and they certainly didn’t opt for flat-out fraud. I have no problem feeling compassion for him as a victim, and also anger towards him as a perpetrator.

But after seeing his documentary, I have to wonder if he isn’t really a victim of evangelicalism. From a young age, his religious beliefs taught his that it was not okay to be gay. Many of us have seen cases where sexually confused youths embrace religion, hoping it will turn them into good heterosexuals, though they are destined to fail. I would not be surprised if this were also the case with Ted Haggard.

I agree

I just watched an interview with that man last week on some news show. It talked about how he’s been “cured” of being gay after two years of therapy.

The moment I heard that it made me sick. To sit there and say you can be “cured” trying to win himself back into the so called light it turns my stomach.

Yes – he is a victim, just like many of us were when we had the deluded thinking of Evangelical Christianity. It is best not to hate – as you pointed out.

Lets hope that he can “see the light” that many of us here did, and learn to accept and appreciate himself.

If he wonders what his life could’ve been without evangelism, he could take notes from Dan Barker, who is still very successful.

The most insightful comment on this, from a few years ago, was from Richard Dawkins. I can’t remember the whole quote, but this was the general gist…

His problem is that he picked the wrong religion: one which wouldn’t let him be what he is.