Well, it was a humdinger (no pun intended) of a week if you were a white evangelical in America. Ted Haggard, the epitome of white evangelical patriarchy and Godly manhood, was exposed by a former gay prostitute who may actually have the moral attributes to be considered a good evangelical: someone who stood up for righteousness and justice at tremendous cost.

I cannot even begin to imagine the hurt and shame that Ted Haggard's wife Gayle, and their five children are experiencing now. The members of the National Association of Evangelicals and Haggard's Colorado Springs megachurch, New Life, have only just begun to taste the bitter pain and ramifications of a leader's fall. But make no mistake: This fall was bought on by both the inability for evangelicals to engage both scripturally and culturally with sexuality, the deception that many good Christians live with in regards to their sexual orientation, and the deification of white masculinity. It is the deification of white masculinity in evangelicalism that objectifies every other person who does not fit into the "traditional family paradigm" into the other: dark, repulsive, and evil. I find it quite fitting that Mike Jones, the aggrieved party in question, realized who "Art" was by seeing Haggard on a special about the antichrist on the History Channel. In my estimation, this is proof that God exists...and that irony is perhaps a divine attribute. [    ]

It is the evangelical preoccupation with regulating sexuality, prohibiting gay marriage, and legislating morality that has produced the roll call of sexual exposes ranging from Jim Bakker, to Jimmy Swaggart, Bill Clinton, Mark Foley, and I am sure I am forgetting countless others. Legislating morality is not a job for churches to engage in within the political arena. Sunday morning service, fine. But leave my ballot box to me on the first Tuesday in November. I don't like to think about sex when I am voting for someone who will be voting on tax cuts, or how fast (or not) we should get out of Iraq, or if my mother can understand the new Medicare/Medicaid laws.

Hopefully, evangelicals will realize that they are in a profound moment of self-examination right now, individually and corporately. That moment is not lodged in the sexual indiscretions of Ted Haggard, but in the profound sense that the political foray, the access to the White House, and all of the posturing and access by evangelical leaders like Ted Haggard and James Dobson has not produced the "Christian nation" and "righteousness" that they have so eagerly sought after. Haggard in the last year was trying to shape a more moderate stance, turning evangelicals toward a new appreciation for the preservation of the environment. Perhaps taking care of the garden of Earth that God gave, rather than listening to that snake whispering political prowess through abusing those who don't conform to the unattainable evangelical ideal, might be a new tactic for evangelicals to consider in the coming days.