Here Doug Phillips of the now defunct Vision Forum, admits to physical sexual immorality:
"Some have suggested that my sin was not sufficiently serious to step down. Let
me be clear: it absolutely does merit my resignation. My resignation is sincere
and necessary given the weightiness of my sin. Some reading the words of my
resignation have questioned if there was an inappropriate physical component
with an unmarried woman. There was, and it was intermittent over a period of
years."
~Source , November 14,2013
What he originally said:
"I
engaged in a lengthy, inappropriate relationship with a woman. While we did not
"know" each other in a Biblical sense, it was nevertheless inappropriately
romantic and affectionate."
~Source, October 30, 2013
The problem is that he was purposefully vague in his original "confession" letter. It left more questions than answers and it certainly made it sounds far more "innocent" than what actually happened (many of us did not believe it was that "innocent" anyway). Sadly, it was physical, and it was over a long period of time (years), thus showing a hard heart and absolute hypocrisy which is not true repentance in his "repentance". For a truly humbled, corrected man, one would think he would publicly apologize to the other woman. It was, in short, a mere cover up for pride and influence. At least he mentioned the other woman was not married--in other words there's not another spouse and more children hurt by their relationship. However, it does show his violation of his principle about guarding unmarried daughters! He was the very wolf he claimed to be warning others about.
Even in his "clarification", he gives a time limit of his time-out. In other words, he's out of leadership "for this season". That's a temporary time- out. He's aiming to come back. Which means that this is nothing more than the hoops to jump through, because he must be in leadership, he must be in control, he must be in the spotlight. It's not humility I see. Its the same thing I saw with *Piper: a temporary time-out to sit on the sidelines and garner more sympathetic fans to see their great example of humility.
Humility doesn't parade itself around. Nor does it make plans for a great come back.
* Others come to mind with the same strategy for sexual immorality and fraud David Hocking, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Ted Haggard. (Piper didn't temporarily leave for this but for marital issues not "immorality"issues, whatever that means and of course he ended up giving up the pastorship altogether, although he still maintains the title "Pastor" which is in my opinion, prideful and fraudulent). They all took time out but all came back. All of them. This is not humility before a holy God, but a narcissistic prideful person who can't stand not being the center of attention and control.
~Source, October 30, 2013
The problem is that he was purposefully vague in his original "confession" letter. It left more questions than answers and it certainly made it sounds far more "innocent" than what actually happened (many of us did not believe it was that "innocent" anyway). Sadly, it was physical, and it was over a long period of time (years), thus showing a hard heart and absolute hypocrisy which is not true repentance in his "repentance". For a truly humbled, corrected man, one would think he would publicly apologize to the other woman. It was, in short, a mere cover up for pride and influence. At least he mentioned the other woman was not married--in other words there's not another spouse and more children hurt by their relationship. However, it does show his violation of his principle about guarding unmarried daughters! He was the very wolf he claimed to be warning others about.
Even in his "clarification", he gives a time limit of his time-out. In other words, he's out of leadership "for this season". That's a temporary time- out. He's aiming to come back. Which means that this is nothing more than the hoops to jump through, because he must be in leadership, he must be in control, he must be in the spotlight. It's not humility I see. Its the same thing I saw with *Piper: a temporary time-out to sit on the sidelines and garner more sympathetic fans to see their great example of humility.
Humility doesn't parade itself around. Nor does it make plans for a great come back.
* Others come to mind with the same strategy for sexual immorality and fraud David Hocking, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, and Ted Haggard. (Piper didn't temporarily leave for this but for marital issues not "immorality"issues, whatever that means and of course he ended up giving up the pastorship altogether, although he still maintains the title "Pastor" which is in my opinion, prideful and fraudulent). They all took time out but all came back. All of them. This is not humility before a holy God, but a narcissistic prideful person who can't stand not being the center of attention and control.
No comments:
Post a Comment