For the last few years, I’ve been grumbling about the fact that we, as a country, have lost our way. As are communication networks expand to every conceivable location on Earth, we’re since concerned ourselves with the whole, or at least the other pieces we can exploit. The world has become a colder place, as we’ve established a global village where few people know your name. I’ve often wondered if we’d ever be able to return to those simplier times, when we were isolated from the world and the only thing we really had to fear was our own stupidity.

Then Ted Haggard comes along.

You’ve no doubt heard about this if you’ve been exposed to any kind of news outlet, including those still using smoke signals. It involves a man named Ted Haggard, an evangelist preacher and founder of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Haggard was your average evangelist preacher, meaning he hated homosexuality. His public stance on gay marriage proved to be his downfall when prostitute Mike Jones came forward and claimed that Haggard was paying him for sex and was using drugs over a three year period.

Haggard, of course, profusely denied ever knowing Jones, but as the scandal drove on, he eventually confessed to buying, but NOT using drugs (yeah, right), and receiving a massage from Jones, but not sex (quadruple yeah, right). He was brought in front of the Overseers Board of New Life Church, who concluded that he had violated the church bylaws. Haggard resigned from his position as the president of the National Association of Evagelicals and as pastor of New Life Church, and is now facing years of “spirutal restoration” until he’s free of his sin.

Gee, and I thought all you needed was Jesus. I guess it doesn’t work that way when you’re supposed to be sitting on his lap already.

I followed this story with mild interest. Frankly, it didn’t surprise me that a blowhard like Haggard is bisexual. When you get to that level of power, you’re pretty much expected to have some kind of skelton in your closest. Also, I knew that it wasn’t going to change anything. Christians, especially the hardcore nuts like Jack Chick and Fred Phelps, are resilient to all forms of fact that contradict their beliefs and won’t waver. So when a respected evangelist suddenly gets outted, these type don’t think “Gosh, maybe guys like us are just human after all! Maybe we should stop being so pretentious and start treating people who don't share are beliefs like human beings!” What they think is “Another heathanistic pawn of Satan posing as a man of God! I’m sure glad I’M not like him!”

So I’m going about my business, the Haggard affair a faint trace in the back of my mind, when it suddenly hits me: a famous and respected Christian preacher with consertative views (especially about homosexuality) who denounces all “evils” and is in turn discovered to be involved in some devious sexual activtities of his own? Why, that sounds like Jimmy Swaggart!

The eighties, for those of you who lived through it, or at least heard of it, were a time of excess and personal gain. It was also the perfect time for a bunch of religious yahoos to start spouting off against the sins of the world while commiting sin themselves. It was the era of “do as I say, not as I do.” Just listen to the Genesis song “Jesus He Knows Me” for the perfect illustration of televangilists of the era. Actually, that song features a televangelist that cheats on his wife with a woman AND a man, so ironically, Genesis predicted this would happen! And yes, I listen to Genesis on occasion.

Jimmy Swaggart, for those of you who’ve wisely distanced yourself from the affairs of Christian preteniousness, was a TV evangelist and minister of the Assemblies of God, a church he established that was making roughly $150 million a year in the eighties. So it’s to be expected that he was found leaving a hotel with a prostitute, and after the usual denial, was publically oustracized.

He eventually made his famous televised confession of his sin, wherein he sobbed and begged for forgiveness, then disappeared from the public eye. He claimed that he was obviously under demonic influence and had fellow Christian shyster Oral Roberts cast out the demons, really, over the phone, making me wish I had whatever phone plan they had so I could do that. A few years later, he was spotted with another prostitute, clearly proving that the phone service that enables remote demonic exorcism is a complete rip off.

So Swaggart and Haggard, in addition to having similar-sounding last names that radiate mild sleaze, were both prominent preachers who were taken down because of a sex scandal. This, of course, has to be more than a coincidence. There must be some deep revlation in these turn of events that can only point to one glorious conclusion: the eighties are back.

Now I’m not saying that the actions of a single horny preacher are going to jut the entire country back into the era of bright suits and Rubix cubes (we should be so lucky). What I’m predicting is an eventual renaissance of a religiously liberal nation, where the majority will stop appealing to the wants of the Christians and give equal consideration to other points of view.

This will happen when the nation once again looks at these religious zealots who have been condemning them while exalting their holiness as flawed human beings, just like them. I think we’ll hit that turning point when people point at the Ted Haggards of the world and say, “Hey, you’re just as sinful as the rest of us! Why should we listen to you? Maybe we should learn about religion on our own!”

At this point, we would see the Righteous Right fade back into the background, and our country’s policies would ideally be less influenced by ambiguous religious morals and more on the ideals of the Constitution, which seperates church and state. Unfortunately, it doesn’t separate man from religion when it comes time to making desicsions, and we’ll find ourselves back in the hands of the Religious Right, because the power of religion works in cycles, but nothing is permanent.

So I’m looking forward to the return to liberal America, which will no doubt be helped by the fact that the Democrats just took over both houses. Do I think we’ll see big changes in this country? Probably not, but I’m hoping that our leaders will make up our policies based on the will of the people, using clear, rational arguments, and not religious bits picked from the Bible that they think should apply to other people (while, of course, ignoring the things that make them look bad).

If this doesn’t work out, I’ll have to start a religious movement where I’ll tell people that they’re terrible human beings and they should give me millions of dollars to make them better. Then I’ll use that money to tell politicians how they’re going to vote, which will in turn allow me to make even more money, and so on until I’m eventually discovered having sex with both a male and a female prostitute and smoking pot. Under the obligation of my position, I’ll have to profusely deny everything, but when I’m finally faced with the Undeinable Proof, I’ll get on TV and cry, begging for forgiveness and disappearing into the background, taking my millions of dollars with me. This just shows how much I’m willing to do for this country. So God bless you, unless you don’t do as I say.