Forgiveness in the Church and the Mosque at Ground Zero

The New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission voted 9 to 0 on Tuesday August 3, 2010 to allow the Mosque and Islamic center to be built just two blocks from the site of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It is refreshing to see and hear a start of forgiveness and healing and to reaffirm that our country can and will move on and be a light in this dark world.

To my dismay though, the church has not learned this yet. As an example there was a men’s meeting recently at a local church and was sitting at a table discussing many things when the topic of Ted Haggard came up. One of the pastors of this church replied and enumerated that Ted Haggard really messed it up for church leaders and fellow pastors. He was angry in what Ted Haggard had allowed to happen and blamed him for some of the moral decay going on in churches.

I was dismayed in hearing this, never was there anything remotely familiar to forgiveness in his attitude or his words. If this is the kind of leadership that church’s can expect they are far from walking with Christ. There was no grace in his words or attitudes. This is what is being found in more and more churches today, judgment.

We are all sinners, my hat is off to Ted Haggard for moving on in his life and allowing healing, mercy, and grace just as Christ would do, in his life. True forgiveness comes when one forgets the past, real love happens when no record of wrongs is kept.

It should be the church teaching the world how to forgive and love. Society, the political world is teaching the church how to forgive and love. This should not be so. It has been said that the world has become so churchy and the church has become so worldly that you cannot tell the difference between the two. Well in this case, the world 1 and the church 0.

~