“I AM NOT A PERFECT MAN”
BISHOP EDDIE LONG
PASTOR OF THE NEW BIRTH MEGA-CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA
SEPTEMBER 26, 2010
I do not pretend to be a historian of the relationship between the Church and the affairs of man. But in my lifetime there have been three or four occasions when the proclivity of the clergy for sexual matters has been pronounced and must be commented upon. To start, my first marriage took place in a very fashionable Presbyterian Church in Clayton, Missouri. The pastor was a highly regarded preacher named Dr. Benjamin Franklin Hall. A day or two before the wedding was to take place, Dr. Hall was accused by a soprano in his choir of having impregnated her. Promptly, Dr. Hall tendered his resignation and took off to become a bookseller in North Carolina. As it turned out, the soprano was not pregnant at all. By this time, however, the cat was out of the bag and it was reasonably clear that Dr. Hall had been diddling the soprano in the choir.
All of the problems of Dr. Hall did not bother me at all. As a non-believer, I thought that the matter at hand was humorous. Dr. Hall’s assistant was a fellow named Herman Schusler, whom I suppose was graduated last in his theological studies class. In Dr. Hall’s absence, the Reverend Schusler performed the marriage ceremony on a hot and sticky St. Louis evening in August.
Looking down the line, we have the matter of Ted Haggard from Colorado, who was violent in his denunciation of gay people. Haggard led marches around Denver and Colorado Springs in an effort to establish that he did not like gay people and wanted them, more or less, to be banished from the face of the earth. Haggard also led a mega-church with what he claimed were 25,000 members.
As events unfolded, it developed that Haggard had gone on a vacation with a male prostitute. It is clear that the Reverend Ted Haggard was as phony as a three-dollar bill. When his romance with the prostitute was finished, he told his congregation – or what was left of them – that he was going to take time to meditate and try to cure himself of his homosexuality.
After a period of several months, when Haggard was motivated by meditation and prayer, he emerged to announce that he was no longer afflicted by the evils of homosexuality and he demanded that he be reinstated as the head of the mega-church. By that time, the members of the mega-church had disappeared into the woodwork and it developed that Haggard was alone in proclaiming his rehabilitation. For all intents and purposes, Haggard is a man without a flock to lead these days.
About the same time that we learned of the trials and tribulations of Reverend Haggard, there were scandals that afflicted the Catholic Church. The Pope contended that the problem rested firmly on the seminaries in this country. At that point, the scandals seemed to have been confined to the United States. The Pope was daydreaming about the size of the scandal but in the end, perhaps a billion dollars or more has been paid to men who had reported that as boys, they had been violated by members of the priesthood. Later developments disclosed that there were predators not only in the United States but also all over Europe. The Pope’s remedy seems to now take the form of apologies. He has apologized to the faithful of the United States. He has also apologized to the faithful in Ireland. Not long ago, the Pope gathered several thousand people who were studying for the priesthood at Saint Peter’s Square and apologized to them. To top off matters, early this year he appeared in England and apologized again. All told, I suspect that the Roman Catholic Church is now poorer by at least two billion dollars as a result of the lawsuits that have been filed against it. And no one really knows whether the predatory priests have been eliminated from the clergy.
Finally, that brings us to the case of the Bishop Eddie Long of Atlanta, Georgia. How Bishop Long became a bishop is open to question. I suspect that he appointed himself, because there is no record that he started as a preacher and worked himself up the chain of command in whatever church he belongs to. Bishop Long is a Baptist. But be that as it may, Bishop Long has preached a gospel that God wants everyone to be wealthy. This scheme seems to have convinced as many as 25,000 Atlantans. They want to join his church and become wealthy materially as well as spiritually. And I must say that Bishop Long does not sport threadbare suits. He seems to enjoy his own wealth as well as the adulation that goes with the provider of great wealth for others.
The name of Bishop Eddie Long’s mega-church is the “New Birth Baptist Church.” It was the scene of the funeral for the widow of Martin Luther King. At that point, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and others came to his church to honor Coretta Scott King.
Apparently for the past several years, things at the New Birth mega-church have gone on swimmingly. As in the case of Ted Haggard, Bishop Long has led marches to denounce gay people. Regularly from the pulpit he decries the fact that gay people exist in this world. But his life as Bishop and a leader to lead everyone to great wealth came to a sudden stop two or three weeks ago.
At that point, a total of four young men in their twenties claimed to authorities that Bishop Long was guilty of several indecent acts. I do not know all of the details which are alleged to have been performed by Bishop Eddie Long. In essence the charges are on this order. Individually he has been accused by the young men of hugging and kissing them, and fondling them. Secondly he is accused of engaging in masturbation with them. Finally, he is also accused of performing oral sex. At this point, it is completely unclear to me whether Bishop Long received the alleged treatment or whether he gave it to the four young men as well. That is a relatively small point. The point is that Bishop Long has been accused by four men, acting individually, of acts that are not within the scope of Christian compassion.
The last of the four accusers came forward on Tuesday of last week. Bishop Long had a period of at least four or five days to say that the four young men were liars and that he had not engaged in these acts ever. But that is not what Bishop Long elected to do. Instead of denouncing the charges against him, Bishop Long said that he would answer them in his sermon on Sunday, September 26.
News reports tell us that the church was overflowing long before Bishop Long ever entered the premises. Obviously the people of Atlanta wanted to hear their pastor denounce the charges or explain them. I suspect that a good many of his supporters were dismayed by his sermon that morning.
After strutting around the altar, Bishop Long got to the heart of his sermon. His basic premise was, “I am not a perfect man.” If I were a member of the New Birth mega-church, I would say to the Reverend Bishop Eddie Long, “What the hell does that mean?” None of us is perfect. No one in his congregation would ever claim to be perfect. But the Bishop Eddie Long more or less confined his sermon to the thought that “I am not a perfect man.”
I am quite aware that there are church-goers who would discount whatever I might wish to say on the grounds that I am a nonbeliever. But I must say that if I were sitting in the jury box if the Bishop goes to trial, I would conclude that the remark about not being perfect was an admission of guilt. At least in this case, as distinguished from Dr. Benjamin Franklin Hall, there was no issue of pregnancy. My guess is that members of his congregation may well conclude with the same thought that I had with respect to his guilt.
In the final analysis, it seems to me that when church leaders become involved in sexual matters, they disgrace themselves by their ignorance. Church leaders are bound by age-old taboos and superstitions which have long since gone out of date. Obviously I am not in favor of a person in a position of authority such as Bishop Long has occupied, forcing his sexual will on young men.
That is forbidden territory as far as I am concerned. But the point of this essay is that there is a proclivity on the part of churches of many kinds to become involved in sexual matters. When the men of faith dip their toes into the depths of sexual preferences and practices, they almost always wind up regretting it. And as for Bishop Eddie Long in Atlanta, he should look up the Reverend Ted Haggard in Colorado. They may both be deposed pastors shortly. Perhaps Bishop Long would recite to Ted Haggard, “I am not a perfect man.” I suspect that the Reverend Ted Haggard might well at this point say the same thing. It might also be that Reverend Haggard and Bishop Long may also get into an argument about who is more imperfect than the other. And finally, when Haggard says that he is cured of homosexuality and when Long says that he is not a perfect man, I repeat my question, “What the hell does that mean?”
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E. E. CARR
September 30, 2010
Essay 498
Every time I read about one of these, I think of George Rekers (the co-founder of the family research council), his “Rent Boy,” and their European vacation.
If you’re obsessed with gay people and want to talk about them all the time, that’s probably a sign of something. Just don’t turn your weird repressed shit into lil-boy-diddling and everything is fine. Sheesh. You think they’d have figured it out by now.