Religious Scandals of the 21st Century - Research Paper Example

Religious scandals of the 21st century Religion is basically a conscious relationship of a person with his GOD and a man expresses his belief though his acts and deeds. God has made some limitations for human being and he is considered a sinner if he crosses the defined limits for example robbery is considered a sin and if a person ignores the God’s order and commits the sin then he is a sinner. In the meanwhile some human beings are also given duties of preaching God’s word and such people are highly trusted by the people of particular religion. Bishops, maulvis etc are example of such personalities. Religion has always been a sensitive issue in any society as it gives hope and if hope becomes an obsession, religion turns horrific. Religion is different from private belief and is something that has a public aspect. A society contains different sets of people with different mind sets and schools of thoughts. Each of these sets predicts or practice religion in its own way. A term frequently used nowadays in debates about religion is “modern manifestation” which literary means “to demonstrate or to indicate a presence of something” for example Indian art has a special manifestation in the field of religion. Debates on religion in different mediums of communication and issues like war on terror, abortions, disputes and war in Middle East, India, Palestine, peace demonstrations etc around us prove that the world is shaped by religions contemporary. As mediums of communication and technology are getting advanced more and more religious scandals are publicized specially in 21st century many religious scandals flabbergasted people. Scandal of Jimmy Swaggart is one of the most famous scandals. Basically Jimmy was an American pastor who uses to preach crowd through a weekly telecast and was watched nationwide. Jimmy Swaggart was enthused in a controversy in 1988 with some serious allegations. He was caught up in a sex scandal involving a prostitute. Initially he denied all the allegations but later on evidence proved that he was actually involved in the “sin” and then he himself confesses that he had made a mistake by delivering a speech titled “I have sinned” on Febraury21, 1988. He has given an emotional speech with tears in his eyes and asking for forgiveness from God but in 1991 he was again seen with a prostitute who herself told that she was with Mr. Jimmy. Jimmy was also working actively against rock music and use to call it a new style of pornography. He has criticized many rock musicians including bands like DeGarmo and Key and Christian musicians like Larry Norman, DeGarmo . He was into industrial music and his thundering number “no sex till marriage” was very famous but ironically later on he released another song “welcome to paradise” in the very year when his first sex scandal was broken. After his scandal many rock musicians and artists were offended and they made certain parodies on Swaggart like by Jim Carrey on In Living Color, Electric Hellfire Club sampled Swaggart's "I have sinned against you, my Lord" in a song called "Hypochristian" and also was referenced as "Jimmy the Reptile" in the Iron Maiden song "Holy Smoke" etc. People who use to follow his weekly program were shocked and he was publically declared as a cancer on the body of Christ. It is not that Jimmy Swaggart was the only person in the world to make this sin or that Americans have never fallen in such sin but the thing that offended people was that how an internationally well known preacher could make such mistake as his disgraceful act can harm the reputation of all preachers of Christianity. As masses are very sensitive about religion no matter they practice it or not that’s why Jimmy has to face many trials and sessions to prove him self. There are also some other scandals that attacked the body of Christ. Such scandals include the famous story of black bishop of Atlanta Eddie Long who was performing his duties at “The New Birth Missionary Baptist Church”. He was an activist of anti gay movements and has supported projects like a national ban on same-sex marriage and he has also counseled church’s gay members to become straight. He also led a march with Bernice King to her father's Atlanta grave to support a national constitutional amendment to protect marriage "between one man and one woman" in 2004 and has also released several gospel albums, authored books on relationships. After reading about his work can anybody believe that he was accused of having a sexual relationship with men of 17 and 18 years old in exchange with money, goods and travel? Later on the number of accusers increased to four from two. Irony in this case is that Mr. Eddie was very out spoken about the homosexual relationships and was very active in anti gay movements. Involvement of a person like Mr. Eddie in such scandal truly made everyone’s skin crawl. The reason again was the position on which Mr. Eddie was. He might not have to face so much hatred if he would be an ordinary person and not a bishop or a religious icon. People were offended that how a person who is preaching word of GOD can himself disobeys Him. A religious leader followed by thousands is not allowed to make such serious mistake. There was once a time when the word “Bishop” was associated with a person who is very respected and reverenced but after case of Eddie Long we can say that this same designation has come to represent some of the most corrupt men the church has ever seen. After Eddie another heart throbbing scandal was of another prominent anti gay activist George Alan Reker. He is a professor emeritus of neuropsychiatry at the University of South Carolina and a Baptist minister too. He was also a co-founder of the conservative and anti-gay Family Research Council, and sat on the board of NARTH. Mr George Alan was caught while returning from a 10 day trip from Europe with a male escort on May13, 2010. The boy whom he has taken himself accepted that Mr. George Alan Reker has taken him and that they were staying together throughout the trip but Mr. George refused the allegation by saying that he spend time with “sinners” with the intention of helping them. His personality became doubtful when he later on changed his statement by saying that he has taken the boy as he can’t push his luggage because of recent surgery. The companion of Mr. Reker revealed that he and the accuser met via an online website called “rentboy.com”. What made Reker’s personality ironic was his publications like: Who Am I? Lord and Growing Up Straight: What Families Should Know About Homosexuality? It was like a homosexual man or a homophobic talking or debating against being homosexuals. After this scandal Mr. George Alan Reker resigned from his position of sitting board member of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). He also has to face offence from gay advocacy groups as he was openly working actively on behalf of anti gay groups earlier. People like Jimmy Swaggart, Eddie Long and George Alan Reker were trusted by masses because of their positions so any act that make people’s trust doubtful is obviously throbbing for those who follow them or their telecasts. Scandals of such personalities also make such sins a very common practice among people as they start thinking that when these people can commit it and they might be forgiven by the GOD so what if I made it? GOD will forgive me too. Growing scandals of homosexuality, child sexual abuse in places like church are obviously skin crawling and are increasing the crime rate too. In other words scandal of a person who is trusted by masses will surely make a negative impact in society. Following are some facts about the growing rate of sexual abuse in church or by priests and bishops: Most of the allegations on priests were ordained between the years of 1950-1979.Over 79 % of priests were between 25 to 29 years of age, 40% between 30-39, 20% under age of 30, 23% were between 40- 49 and 17 percent were above 50. All the facts provided above prove that something is lacking in the beliefs or personalities of our modern preachers that’s why they are ignoring the words of GOD. Their inner and outer world is different and they are not actually what they pretend to be. This bitter reality turns a common person’s trust into mistrust and hatred later on. How people will trust a person who openly talks against a particular sin in front of masses and is always busy in providing religious witnesses to prohibit people from committing them and then commit it by himself. The reason might be that today’s religious personalities have lost spiritual connection with GOD, they themselves don’t realize that what kind of sensitive job they are performing and a single mistake made by them can harm their reputation so badly or they are performing their duties as religious person just to get a prestigious position in minds and hearts of masses? Today a preacher makes a sin and then starts modifying religion to prove himself right which obviously misguides people as [AWT] says, “True faith in God -- not in any god, not in religion, but faith in the sovereign God who made heaven and earth and who will require men's deeds -- that is the God we must believe in, my friends.  Believing in Him, we will seek to crucify our flesh and put on the new man which is renewed in holiness. That kind of faith in God is all but gone.  When the Son of Man cometh, will He find faith on the earth?”1.People have lost the sensitivity about religion and irony is that preachers themselves are standing among such people so who will come forward to save the religion’s prestige. It became a common practice to modify religion in order to save oneself from guilt and under such circumstances what we can do is to make our hearts and mind realize that faith is the only thing that make us belief in existence of GOD as we have not seen him and the sole purpose of our life is to make God happy through our deeds. The only way of making God is to prohibit ourselves from committing the sin he has prohibited for us. Limitations have been clearly mentioned in our Holy books so we don’t need to blindly follow any preacher of religion. The scandals mentioned above and the rapidly changing statements of preachers on televisions and other mediums of communication prove that we can’t trust any person as they look something else from what they actually are? As such people are not only dragging themselves to hell but are leading millions of sincere people into the ditch of error. We have to build a strong belief that Satan wants all of us to think that some sins are OK but we have to keep the fact in mind that what seems like a small sin will always progress and lead to other sins so don't let him or his force (misguiding preachers) fool you. May be it’s a God’s strategy to make us realize through such scandals that anyone of us can fall and that it takes a lot to stand in front of a congregation and pull something out of your soul like this so in order to save ourselves from shame and guilt we have to be very careful about religion and our deeds too. Credibility is an important factor of preacher’s personality and it takes a long time for a preacher to get into hearts of people so no one can take his integrity unless he himself is the one to choose it as [SUL05] says, “preaching is not communication but commission; not organization but ordinance; not delivery but divine utterance, not precision but passion. Preaching is not a vocation; it is an anointing”.2 REFERANCES AWT: , (Tozer), SUL05: , (SULLIVAN, 2005 ), Jimmy Swaggart, To Cross a River, Logos International, 1977 Read More