Rubber Soul

*Please note that there are graphic sexual references in this post. If you are offended at words that start with the letter “d“, you may not want to read further. However, if you can get past it, it might be worth your time.*

Growing up in a Christian school and an independent fundamentalist Baptist church was an interesting study in extremes. Everything was black and white, right or wrong. Period. No gray areas. I took everything that was taught to me as Gospel. How could these Men of Gawd be wrong? They were preaching the Bible after all, and since they were “anointed,” God’s Word would not return void, right?

As I grew into an adult and had a few unholy wrongs done to me by some of those people I had trusted, I realized how incredibly naive I had been to much of the hypocrisy that was going on all around me. I was a teenager who had found my voice (literally, because it was then that I began singing publicly) and was so “on fire” for God that it didn’t dawn on me that any of the leaders who were guiding me would not be living the lives behind closed doors that they claimed from the pulpit.

Yet, I have always striven to see the good in folks first. Innocent until proven guilty. I suppose that is why each time I hear of another pastor, evangelist, or Christian minister whose hypocrisy is found out and proclaimed from the rooftops (or media, as it were), I am still grieved.

I try to resist becoming jaded. Others have been hurt to the point that they have nothing left inside but to take joy in the hypocrite’s calamity. It’s understandable. The ironic thing about religion is that it can change one person for the better while at the same time destroying another’s life forever.

The story about Gary Aldridge, a minister in Montgomery, Alabama, who was found dead under some incredibly embarrassing circumstances (see below), at first was just another case in which I rolled my eyes and sighed out of exasperation. Aunt B had linked over to the story at Smoking Gun, and there his picture was. I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out where. The background in his picture looked a lot like the pulpit at Jerry Falwell’s church, but since the guy was in Alabama, I figured it was just coincidence. Last night, I finally Google’d his name, and found out that he had been the Dean of Students at Liberty University when I attended there. Realizing that I had sat under this guy’s leadership and heard him preach a few times in that year has taken me aback, especially considering that those were the glory days of the “Moral Majority” with its unabashed condemnation of anything that wasn’t in line with their stance on an issue.

I’ll be the first to admit that we all fight hypocrisy on some level or another. When I catch it in myself, it really bothers me. I don’t want to be a bad person. I want to do right by others. I believe most of us are that way.

Then you’ve got those who have appointed themselves righteous enough to preach condemnation and judgment on those who do not live the same lifestyle as they do. They have used their position of power to oppress entire groups of people and make them feel like a piece of dirt in the eyes of God.

Then you’ve got a pastor, 51-years-old and the wife’s out of town, who decides he wants to get his freak on by donning two rubber wet suits, hog-tying himself, putting a dildo up his butt, and asphyxiating himself to just the point where he can bring himself back. All for the ultimate orgasm, I suppose. Sadly, he didn’t return to consciousness and his secret is out.

What he wanted to do behind closed doors was his business. However, obviously this wasn’t his first rodeo. You don’t go from the missionary position to this kind of extreme sex on a whim. He had to learn about this type of activity from pornography or from watching and/or participating with others. Activities that he preached against and made others feel bad about themselves for.

So now his poor family and congregation are left to be ridiculed by the media and those who take joy in his demise.

The saddest part to me is that this will be yet another thing to further widen the ravine between Christian and non-Christian, conservative and liberal, right and left…all thanks to the manner in which some men of the cloth have waved their religious and political banners in the air so self-righteously through the years.

I spent some time perusing blog posts, comments, and news sites about this story. Not surprisingly, there were countless rants from both sides railing in to each other.

Over at Sadly, No!, one commenter (zsa) really hit the nail on the head for where I believe we are in the general dialog when things like this happen:

Repressed sexuality never ends well.

You know what’s funny about this? Aside from the dead guy encased in rubber with a plastic dick up his butt, I mean. I think there’s a real difference in how the conservative/religious loons see this and how we assorted moonbats and leftagnards look at it.

They see a preacher with a sexual problem.

We see a man with a religious problem.

With today being “National Coming Out” day, I want to state here that it is my prayer that one day the “Majority” of religious (& political) voices we hear will not be those of condemnation for one’s sexuality, but of complete and utter love & acceptance. It must come from leaders as well as the church as a whole, and should come because of the all-encompassing love and acceptance each of us has from our God.

Perhaps then, there will be fewer women who don’t have to find out the hard way that their husband was living a lie…and fewer people in pain from experiencing the rejection of the very church that is supposed to love them for who they are.